Chinese packaging – a fetish with colors, characters and shapes

It may sound quite unusual to many of you, did it ever came in to your mind that product packaging may be a form of art in its own right? Or even more, they can represent a form of cultural expression that is quite ignored by the majority of people? Product packaging is an art in its own right for many reasons, one of them would be that it has its own set of aesthetic norms, and it also has a variety of styles and techniques which are used differently depending on the nature of the product. The way we design a package for a product is also an expression of culture, if we ever cared of taking a closer look at the products that we bought until, you may notice that there are specific characteristics of the packaging depending on the product’s country of origin. One of the favorite packaging designs are those that come from East Asia, and more particular, Chinese ones. Chinese packaging design has a few characteristics that make me love them:

a.       The bold writing with Chinese characters – I think that many times this very bold style with intense colors and prominent characters won’t work really that well on packaging where the writing the Latin scrip is used.

The shape of Chinese characters makes them look good in almost any font style, and it always gives them a highly artistic look. And I know this is highly unfair for the Latin script, but you know, many things in life are to really that fair.

b.      The crazy color schemes – I love some of the interesting color schemes that are used for many Chinese packaging, they have a very ‘owned tacky’ look, and many times it gives a childish look, but not in a bad sense.

c.       Traditional Chinese motives in modern interpretations – The most interesting thing about this is when it is possible to adapt traditional Chinese motives on products that do not necessarily have something to do with anything traditional from the Chinese culture. You can find this on the packaging of a random soda, or chips, or even cosmetics that do not have any traditional Chinese ingredients or extracts in their formulas.

d.      When packaging display authentic fragments of traditional Chinese art – this is quite in opposition to what I said at the previous point, but I truly like both ways. Chinese culture has the amazing capacity of being international, of managing to make its message spread across cultural borders. Because of this, traditional Chinese motives on a product’s package can really make a good contribution to its value. 

e.       Chinese kawaii packaging –Even thou many of us would associate this style with Japan and South Korea, it is quite present in China too. Kawaii can be used very well for children’s products, but for many other types too. It can always take attention away from the product itself and fool the costumer with an overdose of cuteness.