Japanese Packaging Design#1: Strawberry Fair!

25 Jan 2006 Category: Features, Graphics, Japan, Products

Uleshka: I have never seen so many different strawberry products in one shop!
Kyoko: Well, it’s January, right? Strawberry season!
Uleshka: I know, but it’s never been that crazy, besides the fact that it is pretty odd to have strawberries in January, anyway!
Kyoko: Why?
Uleshka: ….!??

written by Uleshka

This is roughly, how this article started. If Kyoko doesn’t know, that STRAWBERRIES ACTUALLY DON’T GROW IN WINTER, I wonder how many others also believe, that it is perfectly normal to have a “Strawberry Fair” in January.

The shelves are bursting with special seasonal limited edition strawberry products, which make me aware of how fast and precisely they can nowadays market products for a certain target group - or season. Quite impressive, I must admit!

It might be concerning to see, how well it all works without us even noticing (Just now I realized how many strawberry KitKat I consumed already, before being aware of the whole Strawberry Hype).

Away from the OhMyGodIcan’tBelieveHowBrainWashedWeAllAre! - side to something, that really touched me in the middle of my thoughts: handmade signage!

I cannot claim to be a fan of store chains taking over the streets of Tokyo (and any other big city in the world…) but - now listen to this: almost every convenient store in Japan finds it’s own way of personalizing their store by decorating it with lovely, dedicated handmade signage!!! Now tell me any big supermarket e.g. in Germany, which would ever be able to encourage their staff to make the store feel a little more at home (even if it would only take them 10 minutes)!

Respect to Japan!

Here we go with our packaging design!

Obviously, there is a lot of red and pink, with a little bit of green! Let’s take a closer look at the different strawberry styles:

Realistic, natural style

Strawberry + Cream style

Cute-Strawberry-style

There is a huge range of strawberry products: from the obvious strawberry chocolate, to strawberry yoghurt, drinks, cookies, cake, strawberry chewing gum, strawberry mochi, strawberry throat candy, strawberry chips and even strawberry sandwiches (all gone when I tried to take a picture, though)…

Many products literally “appear” as an exclusive range during the Strawberry Season and their limited availability seems to work great for the producers: by the time I come back to buy my new favorite chocolate again, it’s already sold out!

In general, products come and go veeery quickly in Japan. Often to an extend, that I find it extremely annoying, since some products are really good and should rather not be pushed away only because their season is over!!

When studying the strawberry packaging designs a little, I made out a few main groups:

Asian Strawberry

Cheap strawberry
These cheap sweets range poducts didn’t change anything in their basic designs, apart from plotting on another strawberry to suit the season.

Ladies’ Berry
“Love Love Heart” is clearly aimed at girls, I would say. It doesn’t even need a strawberry to sell: as long as it is pink, it seems to work fine (besides, since the Sakura Season is still to come, what else could it be, but strawberry?).

“Soy Cube” is a new product, elegant design and aims at women who care for beauty: the soy-milk strawberry sweet contains a high percentage of isoflavone, which is supposed to be healthy, good for the skin and can even be found in several cosmetics.

Tasty Berry
Some examples of packaging, which focus on the actual taste by using esthetic images of the yummy ingredients: chocolate and creamy strawberry filling.

Cute Strawberry
…and then guess, which packages I like best!

Better be quick, if you still want to get some before the season is over!

75 Comments

1. simply wonderful!

   Posted by: daniel on January 25th, 2006 at 8:31 pm

2. wow this is the best article ive ever seen XD promise you will do sakura season? ^^v

   Posted by: Fei on January 25th, 2006 at 11:57 pm

3. sakura season…..!? Hm…I’ll think of something!

   Posted by: Uleshka on January 26th, 2006 at 12:33 pm

4. I love the “cute koala” produced by lotte. They are so tasty. yum yum.

   Posted by: bentong on January 26th, 2006 at 1:03 pm

5. Mmm…looks tasty. ;D~~

   Posted by: Pansea on January 26th, 2006 at 6:37 pm

6. hi a new have one please.

   Posted by: alonzouribe on January 27th, 2006 at 11:50 am

7. The Japanese style of design for the package design is unique. Easy to identify it, easy to read, it’s so interesting check the differences between the design (package design) between france, usa, tokyo. Sometimes I think a designer here in MEXICO designs what he wants, what he likes… but far to design what the customer want to see. :-)

   Posted by: Jorge on January 31st, 2006 at 3:41 pm

8. I was doing some research on Japanese aesthetics and found this site…this SO wonderful! Japanese graphics/packaging design and food presentation have always interested me. I appreciate all of your comments and insights!

   Posted by: margaret on February 6th, 2006 at 6:40 pm

9. [...] Good stuff over on PingMag (my favorite Japanese website) on packaging design of strawberry products. [...]

   Posted by: Strawberries (Leapfroglog) on February 20th, 2006 at 5:25 pm

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11. wow, lovely… :P everything looks nice. Ah, it’s a good refreshing to look at Japanese packaging. I’ve been writing a thesis on the aesthetic of cute which mostly influence from the Japanese. This is useful to show some example.

    Posted by: dians on October 28th, 2006 at 8:09 am

12. This is a great blog, love all the tasty packaging design!
    Good insight into the Japanese market and lot so diversity…keep up the good work!

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15. Posted by: Adultjj on November 18th, 2006 at 3:27 am

16. aren’t their seasons opposite ours? like it’s snowy in the “summer” months?

    Posted by: mdawg on February 8th, 2007 at 4:15 am

17. errr……. No! to be honest ;-)

    Posted by: Uleshka on February 8th, 2007 at 9:45 pm

18. [...] After exploring Strawberry Sweets’ packages in our Japanese Packaging#1 article, we will entirely focus on “packages with a face” today. [...]

    Posted by: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about "Design and Making Things" » Archive » Japanese Packaging Design#2: Snack Characters on February 10th, 2007 at 1:03 am

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21. [...] mi gusto con tres artículos sobre el diseño de envases japonés, el primero llamado Strawberry Fair! como su nombre lo indica se centra en las ilustraciones de frutillas, el segundo y el más [...]

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