Silver Packaging Design · 2024
Aquetha Branding and Packaging
by Tacto Inc.
- A' Design Award 2024 Silver Winner in Packaging Design
- Awarded April 15, 2024
- CLIENT: Tacto Inc
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 31,300
- Verification code 25238D153F · Verify this award
About Aquetha Branding and Packaging
Aquetha is a packaging and branding design for aged Japanese sake. The bottle is hand-made by a glass artist and shaped by the force of gravity, which gives a natural roundness that suggests the passage of time. The rounded form also supports smooth aging after bottling. Transparent labels are produced with blank letterpress printing to reflect the clear character of ice-temperature aging. The simple outer box has a dent between the lid and the body to express the aging timeline. The design presents aged sake as an artwork rather than an ordinary product.
Tacto inc.'s Aquetha Branding and Packaging exists within a distinguished lineage of considered object design, where the vessel becomes inseparable from the experience of its contents, and where each material choice serves both functional necessity and aesthetic philosophy. The spherical glass form recalls historical alchemical vessels and laboratory glassware, yet achieves a contemporary elegance through its refined proportions and crystalline clarity, suggesting the transformation of simple ingredients into something precious through time-honored craft. The typography deployed across both bottle and box demonstrates sophisticated restraint, with the primary identifier set in a classical serifed face that carries associations of established publishing houses and heritage institutions, while secondary information maintains hierarchical clarity through careful weight and scale modulation. The two-piece box construction reveals engineering precision, with the lid's overlap creating clean shadow lines that articulate the package's three-dimensional presence. Material selections speak to values of authenticity and craft, with the natural cork closure introducing organic warmth and the textured paper label suggesting artisanal production methods. The opalescent quality of the liquid visible through the glass invites contemplation of the product's delicate character, while the spherical form transforms a functional container into an object worthy of display and collection. This packaging system achieves what might be termed quiet luxury, where understatement becomes its own form of declaration, and where the absence of visual noise allows each considered detail to resonate. The viewer is invited to consider how the ritual of opening, pouring, and experiencing might be elevated when the vessel itself embodies such thoughtful intentionality.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Aged sake is a minor genre among Japanese sake, and the design team needed to re-propose it to the world in a way that is not bound by the traditional context of Japanese sake. Therefore, they created a design to position AQUETHA, which is characterized by ice-temperature aging, as the umbrella for the online gallery “Kitamura Sake Exhibition,'' which views aged sake as works of art, and as the first of the works that will be exhibited and sold there. Based on this concept, they planned and developed bottles that are hand-made by artists, and a website that functions as a gallery. The selection of works for the second and subsequent editions is already underway, as they have been well-received by Western liquor fans and young people who were previously unable to approach aged sake.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Bottle: width 110mm × depths110mm × height150mm
Package: width135mm × depth135mm × height 165mm - Tags
- Packaging, Product Design, Website
- Production Technology
- Bottles and packaging that do not compromise
on every detail as a “artwork”.
Design team commissioned glass artist Yutaro Kijima to create a bottle that is shaped by the force of gravity and has a natural roundness that gives a sense of the passage of time. Furthermore, in order to make the most of the clear impression that is a characteristic of ice-cold aging, they created transparent labels printed using blank letterpress printing.
The outer box has a simple shape to make the flask-shaped bottle look more attractive. they created a dent on the border between the lid and the main body to express the aging timeline, creating a luxurious feel that incorporates the delicate image of the work.
A website that acts more like a gallery than EC site.
On the website, design team aimed to create a gallery-like space where the consumer could "feel" the work rather than "buying" the product. AQUETHA's greatest feature, the delicacy that matures slowly over time, is expressed through white-based visuals and delicate lines. The spacious design creates a clean, simple and sophisticated image. - Design Challenge
- Since the Sake bottle is designed to be handcrafted one by one with glasswork craftsman, it was challenging to make them a perfect size and shape to keep the quality of sake among temperature and moisture. Design team and glass artist had tried so many different shape to test wether the bottle keeps the quality of sake in different atmosphere. They ended up using rounded bottle that helps smooth aging of sake after sake is bottled.
- Project Duration
- 2months, Tokyo, Japan
- Operation Flow
- This tends to be SDGs project because lots of sake brewery have unsold sake that is asleep for a certain period of time (it is perfectly kept to be aged sake). The design team has branded them as Aged Sake to turn unsold sake into a value for brewery and customer, which ultimately prevented from lots of sake become a waste.
- Inspiration
- Design team faced business issue of what can they do to increase the value of aged sake, which is an idle asset in sake breweries across Japan. They found inspiration in paintings, which value of painting varies depending on popularity and the time. The solution was to open an online gallery as a curator to exhibit and sell aged sake, a treasure hidden throughout Japan.
- Image Credits
- Photographer: Masato Ishibashi
Glass Artist: Yutaro Kijima
Colors of Aquetha Branding and Packaging
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