This Chinese white spirit product is named HeGan, meaning that “no matter what is happening outside, it’s none of my business”. The meaning is quite abstract under the Chinese context. On one hand, it sounds rude and indifferent; on the other hand, it could be re-explained as “no matter what is happening outside, it does not affect my mind.” In this case, the idea behind the product name manifests the ability of independent thinking.
In China, drinking is a group activity in most cases, so few people prefer to taste a glass of good wine alone. The birth of this product aims to find back the nature of wine-tasting and enable people to feel the quality of white spirit in the way of drinking alone. Therefore, the product is actually targeting white spirit lovers instead of alcoholics. However, our biggest problem was how to visualize such an abstract theme.
We also designed an irregular bottle for the product to make the container look like flowing water. To enhance the visual effect, we carved leaves on the bottle, just as if the leaves are floating on water. The design is the metaphor of a Chinese idiom, “gone with the wave,” meaning to follow the mainstream. However, we added an irregular label, with the image of a thinker on the top, to the middle of the bottle. Through the contrast between the image of a thinker and the metaphor of “gone with the wave,” the idea we are trying to deliver is that “no matter how the outside world is changing, it will not affect my inner world. My inner peace remains the same even when the outside world is unimaginably disturbing.” With this, we believe that we have finished the entire visualization process of the abstract concept HeGan.
The visual expression of these Chinese idioms may seem abstruse from your perspective, but in China, it’s understandable. In fact, our goal is to awake local consumers’ interest and recognition of their own culture.
Agency: ShenZhen Lingyun creative packaging design Co.,Ltd.
Designers: XiongBo Deng, Yao Xu
Client: ShanXi TianMu Industrial Co., Ltd.
Location: China
