PROJECT
MIKADO LEMON
Sparkling sake packaging featuring organic lemon. UV printing recreates lemon peel texture. Hiroshima Design Award Grand Prix winner.
WHY
To restore
the declining value
of sake.
The Japanese liquor industry sales fell since the 1970’s and have now dropped to about 1/3 since its peak period. Although the Japanese sake has recently gained popularity, the overall impact is small, where sake industries have been closed for hundreds of years. Although the overseas export volume of sake has increased in recent years, there are many cases where brewers have procured rice from other prefectures. This in comparison to the wine industry, where they have close relationships with local fields and communities, does not make the most of the local culture and other features. In this situation, we questioned what was necessary to disseminate traditional sake loved by many Japanese people, with the charm of the region, to connect the sake industry to the future.
HOW
A new sake designed
to look just like a lemon.
We worked on designing a bottle for “MIKADO LEMON,” a sparkling lemon sake, produced by venture company “Naorai” launched by Mr. Koichiro Miyake, who’s relatives run a long-established sake storehouse in Hiroshima prefecture. In the farm of the Mikado island floating in the Seto Inland Sea, using organic lemon and sake grown without using any agricultural chemicals or chemical fertilizers, we created a new experience when celebrating with sake. The bottle has a band that realistically reproduces the texture of the lemon peel produced through UV printing, expressing the freshness of the material. The design of the product is intuitively transmitted, as it is a brand that aims to realize the up-selling of sake, to create a new sake market. It was made to be an exclusive sake that uses Hiroshima’s specialty lemons to create a presence reminiscent of high-class champagne.
WILL
A design representing
the region,
spreading throughout
the country.
The Mikado Lemon bottle clearly expresses an unprecedented type of sake that has won numerous global design awards. We gained recognition as a representative design in the region, awarded as the world’s top five liquor designs at PENTAWARDS, and being granted the Hiroshima Good Design Award Grand Prize. Such evaluations of these awards have helped MIKADO LEMON develop a market of clients who love liquor as a luxury item, as a conventional sake like never before.
In the future, by continuing the growth of this liquor, it is our future to look forward to realizing the regional activity of Mikado Island, which is the origin of the organic lemon. Currently, with Naorai, we are researching and developing a completely new method of producing distilled spirits, continuing at a parallel pace to create new experiences of Japanese sake.
INFORMATION
- What
- MIKADO LEMON
- When
- 2016
- Where
- Mikado Island, Hiroshima, Japan
- Client
- Scope
- Branding / Branding stationary / Logo / Packaging / Photograph / Web and Front End / Video
CREDIT
- Art Direction
- NOSIGNER (Eisuke Tachikawa)
- Graphic Design
- NOSIGNER (Eisuke Tachikawa, Andraditya D.R., Aya Sakurai)
- Web Design
- NOSIGNER (Eisuke Tachikawa, Ryo Fukusawa)
- Development
- NOSIGNER (Naoki Hijikata)
- Photo
- Kunihiko Sato, NOSIGNER (Yuichi Hisatsugu)
