Gold Packaging Design · 2021
Miltos Botchan Ressha Packaging
- A' Design Award 2021 Gold Winner in Packaging Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Miltos
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 35,184
- Verification code 2CE08CAC32 · Verify this award
About Miltos Botchan Ressha Packaging
Miltos Botchan Ressha is a chocolate package created for a collaboration between a locomotive with more than 130 years of history and a chocolatier. The box is made of deep green fine paper, a color that refers to the train livery and to matcha chocolate. The locomotive is reproduced with matte black foil stamping, based on photographs of the actual train. The logo and the product name are stamped with matt gold foil. The chocolate is engraved with a route map drawn as a maze. An attached card explains each stop and the route.
Yuta Takahashi's packaging design for this confectionery collection emerges from a rich tradition of applied graphic arts that honors the intersection of functional commerce and visual culture, positioning consumable goods within frameworks of aesthetic appreciation typically reserved for gallery contexts. The designer appears to engage deliberately with heritage printing conventions and industrial-age visual documentation, employing the vocabulary of technical illustration—once purely utilitarian—as a decorative language that speaks to contemporary audiences seeking authenticity and craft narrative within their purchasing experiences. The compositional strategy demonstrates sophisticated understanding of chromatic restraint, wherein the near-monochromatic teal palette creates visual unity while allowing the golden typography to function as precious accent, its warmth suggesting the value of the contained product through material metaphor rather than explicit declaration. Technical execution reveals meticulous attention to registration and print quality, the fine linework of the locomotive illustrations maintaining clarity and precision across every mechanical detail, from driving wheels to pressure gauges, suggesting either letterpress or high-quality offset lithography on carefully selected substrate. The choice of matte, uncoated paper introduces tactile dimension that photography can only suggest, promising recipients a sensory experience extending beyond visual appreciation into haptic engagement. Thematically, the railway motif may reference regional heritage, transportation narratives of connection and journey, or perhaps specific origin stories related to the product's manufacture or distribution history, transforming the package into a storytelling vehicle. The careful staging of this photographic documentation—with its dramatic chiaroscuro lighting and harmonious surface matching—elevates commercial packaging into the realm of still life composition, inviting viewers to consider how design transforms mundane objects into carriers of cultural meaning and aesthetic experience.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- A collaborative product and package between a locomotive with more than 130 years of history and an up-and-coming, well acclaimed chocolatier. The package's form has a sense of luxury reminiscent of perfume, with precise train drawings that would make fans groan reproduced with foil stamping. The deep green of the package symbolizes the trade color of the train and the color of matcha chocolate. The chocolates are decorated with the motif of an actual route map, adding a touch of playfulness.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Box: 101.6mm x 101.6mm x 12.7mm (Uses deep green fine paper. The locomotive is matte black foil stamped. The logo and product name are stamped with matt gold foil.)
Card: 250mm x 83mm
Chocolate: 76.5mm x 76.5mm x 5.5mm - Tags
- Branding, Packaging, Chocolate, Foil stamping, Maze, Food, Art deco, Japan
- Production Technology
- It has been manufactured with accuracy, artistry and entertainment. The trains are drawn with respect for railroad fans and its history, based on photographs of the actual trains taken by the designers themselves. The printing uses matte black foil stamping to express the train's calm texture. The line width seeks maximum tenuity through repeated trial production. The lines and logos engraved on the chocolate are designed to have a depth measurable in microns, so that beautiful shadows appear.
- Design Challenge
- The most difficult task is to accurately reproduce the design applied to chocolate. Many trials were made to engrave an accurate pattern on the chocolate, which crumbles easily, giving it an artistic finish. Keeping in mind that the role and beautiful form of the train exist when it's running, the drawing of the train is arranged so as to surround the package, and the static package expresses the dynamic role of a train that has been running for many years.
- Project Duration
- The project started in Japan in July 2019 and ended in February 2020. It was announced in September 2020.
- Operation Flow
- It was designed to give the consumer a cultural experience that will improve their life by eating this chocolate. The perfume-inspired packaging takes them to a new frontier, to enjoy the mellow aroma of chocolate made from real cocoa. By consuming it while enjoying the maze, they can visit the route and background of the areas and cultures where the train runs. In addition, each stop and route map is explained on the attached card. Eating enhances creativity, leading to a time of refinement.
- Research
- The elements necessary to raise chocolate to gourmet status without compromising essence are being researched. A conclusion was reached about how fragrance is an important component, and a package produced that creates an impression of perfume. This locomotive, rugged but with a petite and cute side, is expressed through drawings and a maze of maps. The mechanical and cultural features have been extracted to create something to be enjoyed by children and adults alike.
- Inspiration
- The creator was inspired by two people who produce things without compromise. The original appearance of the train is accurately reproduced in the package. Through the elements of design that capture the locomotive's steampunk feel in a good way, one can enjoy its original charm. The chocolate has a playful design to it that expresses the route on which the train runs as a maze. The contrast and fusion of two different designs is related to their collaboration.
- Image Credits
- Image 1: Photographer Yuta Takahashi, 2020
Optional Image 1: Photographer Yuta Takahashi, 2020
Optional Image 2: Photographer Yuta Takahashi, 2020
Optional Image 3: Photographer Yuta Takahashi, 2020
Optional Image 4: Photographer Yuta Takahashi, 2020