Bronze Packaging Design · 2022
Meandre Bottle and Package Design
by Jiawei Wu
- A' Design Award 2022 Bronze Winner in Packaging Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Jiawei Wu Design
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 11,477
- Verification code FEBBC948E6 · Verify this award
About Meandre Bottle and Package Design
Meandre is a bottle and packaging design created for a natural perfume brand. The name comes from a French word that means curves of a river. The design aims to give an immersive experience of wandering in a forest. The cap follows the form of a bending branch, and the bottle is made of North American walnut shaped by a wood bending process. An information card carries a photograph and a description of the rural French forest that inspired the fragrance. Only natural, woody notes are used in the scent.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The packaging system of the méandre is mainly focus on creating an immersive experience for customers to bring them wandering in forest with the footprints. The cap design reflects the image of natural shape with its bending branch. All stone-made bottle is an important representation of the beauty of nature. With the photo and description on the information card, users can picture the exact moment that the perfumer experience back in that little French rural forest. No matter where the customers live their lives, the méandre can bring them to the verdant forest immediately not only with the scent but with the whole packaging experience design.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The product's design used a vector graphics editor. As a vector graphic, it can be scaled up and down without any loss to the quality of the image. The packaging final design was submitted in both RGB and CMYK color variants for printing and social media marketing. The bottle design uses Rhino to build it and choose a wood bending process with North American walnut.
- Tags
- Package Design, Perfume Bottle, Fragrance, Art Direction, Natural, Product
- Production Technology
- All the graphics were made in Adobe Illustrator to remain the vector quality. Final designs were delivered in RGB, CMYK, and Pantone colors in order to keep the brand color appearance consistent throughout all media. The bottle design uses Rhino to build it and choose a wood bending process with North American walnut.
- Design Challenge
- The visual translation of natural elements and brand image needs to find a balanced and creative point.The bottle package design is an innovative design with a complex structure, and the machining qualification rate is the biggest challenge encountered by this project.
- Project Duration
- The project started in 2020 and finished in 2021.
- Operation Flow
- Méandre is a natural perfume brand. The fragrance profile is based on the natural, woody notes to give users an experience and feeling that they are walking in the forest, thus only natural scents were selected as the ingredients.
- Research
- The objective starts from brand experience, brand personality and character definition, target audience. The experience defined – a journey in the forest with footmarks. Méandre is elegant, natural and chic. Thorough research of the history of perfume package design is conducted before concept development. Compared to other graphic design projects, I conducted way more user interviews and workshops on méandre due to its genuine quality of heavy user/customer interaction. It was a very interesting experience for me to deeply co-create concepts and content with users.
- Inspiration
- The brand personality and design was inspired by the French word "méandre", which means "curves of a river." Notes of this fragrance last longer with experiencers, which form a subtle hint haunted with them. The design translated the experience into an immersive journey with natural and woody notes. Moreover, the package delivers a sustainable design concept. The main purpose of this project is to represent the experience of forest wandering.
- Image Credits
- Design:Jiawei Wu
Photo Credits: Sonia Szostak - Patents
- Jiawei Wu
Colors of Meandre Bottle and Package Design
Grand Interview about Meandre Bottle and Package Design
I’ve always been drawn to crafted packaging and objects that carry a sense of human touch. When I first began the Meandre project, I wanted to explore how a woody fragrance could evoke emotion through storytelling. I asked myself: if a pink heart represents romance, what kind of story should Meandre tell?The word “Meandre” itself — meaning the curves of a river — already evokes a sense of natural freedom and flow. To shape that into design, I began by writing down objects and emotions that reminded me of walking through the forest. I also spoke with friends, gathered research, and built moodboards that connected these feelings.Once the overall direction was clear, I studied textures and materials that could translate this atmosphere into touch and form. Because packaging directly engages our senses, I wanted every surface and curve to amplify that immersive, nature-driven emotion.
Every material choice must first serve the story. I’m naturally curious about how different materials express emotion, and I often experiment with their tactile and visual qualities.For Meandre, the fragrance already carried a sense of nature, so it felt right to highlight craftsmanship and honesty through materiality. I studied various types of wood and stone to find the right balance — one that felt both raw and refined. Walnut offered warmth and longevity, while the stone-like texture grounded the concept with quiet strength.The harmony between these materials not only reflects sustainability but also deepens the emotional resonance of the design.
At the beginning, I wanted the fragrance to feel like a slow, meditative walk through the woods — something fluid and continuous. The word méandre naturally suggested movement, so I explored visual metaphors that could express it: winding paths, flowing rivers, scattered branches.Among these, the branch stood out as a symbol of memory — a trace of the journey itself. I used it as the inspiration for the cap, while the bottle’s body took on the tactile texture of riverbed stones. These two elements together became metaphors for the gentle rhythm of nature.Every detail in the design tells part of that wandering story, creating a sensory connection between landscape and emotion.
I started the project by sculpting the bottle prototype out of clay — something I had never done before. The challenge was to carve smooth, elegant curves that still felt natural and stone-like. My first attempts were very rough; it felt almost like playing with mud.Over time, I studied basic sculpting techniques to refine the form. The branch-inspired cap was another experiment: at first, I left the natural roughness of twigs, but later smoothed it out to improve touch and usability. Instead of replicating nature literally, I wanted to express its feeling through crafted precision.The process was one of constant iteration — learning to let the technical and artistic sides inform each other until they reached harmony.
From the very beginning, I conducted small-scale interviews with friends, designers, and potential users to understand what “walking through the forest” meant to them. Their responses went far beyond trees — they mentioned the sound of flowing water, fallen acorns, stones by the path.Those sensory references inspired me to translate not only the visuals but also the gestures and emotions of wandering. The idea of collecting small fragments from nature became central to the design.Rather than adopting every piece of feedback, I carefully curated the insights that aligned with the story. The result is a design that feels both personal and universal — built from shared memories and sensory cues.
The woody notes of the fragrance established a calm and organic tone from the start. I wanted the colors to feel soft, balanced, and quietly confident — much like nature itself.I also studied the lifestyle and aesthetic preferences of the fragrance’s intended audience: cultured, introspective individuals who value subtle sophistication over ostentation. This research helped me refine the color harmony across the materials — from the bottle and cap to the packaging card.The sense of refinement doesn’t come from one color alone, but from how every tone and texture transitions naturally into the next, creating a holistic and elegant atmosphere.
The information card was designed to be more than just a product insert — it’s an extension of the story.Visually, I kept the typography minimal and airy to evoke a sense of breathing space. The imagery features a quiet corner of the forest, reinforcing the theme through visual poetry rather than description.Materiality was also important: I chose heavy-weight textured paper to create tactile depth, so that the moment of holding and reading the card would echo the tranquility of the forest itself.
Three key insights came from this journey: 1. Storytelling is the essence of design. A compelling package is not about how “cool” it looks but about how coherently it tells its story. 2. Material research deepens meaning. Understanding how materials behave — visually, tactilely, symbolically — allows them to become storytellers themselves. 3. Packaging is interdisciplinary. It merges graphic design, industrial design, sculpture, and communication. This project taught me that packaging design is a synthesis of art and systems thinking.
I believe the future of luxury design will move away from the pursuit of status and toward human-centered storytelling.Luxury will no longer be defined solely by rarity or extravagance, but by authenticity, empathy, and craft. Sustainable materials will continue to play a key role — not as an aesthetic trend, but as a way to bring emotional honesty to design.Meandre reflects this transition: it’s not about showing opulence, but about evoking quiet connection through refined simplicity.
For me, every design element must serve storytelling. Beautiful visuals are essential, but true design goes beyond sight — it invites touch, rhythm, and emotion.In Meandre, I considered how each sensory layer could echo the same story: the texture of stone, the sound of a cap turning, the flow of opening and discovering. Each becomes a narrative moment within the experience.Multisensory design isn’t about overwhelming the senses — it’s about creating a system where every element, from sight to touch to pacing, works together to tell one cohesive story. That’s where emotional resonance begins.