AYU Hiraki

Design: Masahiro Minami
Location: Japan
Project Type: Produced
Client: Kimura Suisan Co., Ltd.
Product Launch Location: Asia
Packaging Contents: Dried Fish
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Paper / Vinyl
Printing Process: Screen printing

In Japan, it is a common practice to cut fish in half, open it, and eat it dried. This type of processed fish food is called Himono（dried fish）. This is a dried ayu（ayu means sweet fish), which is a very rare product in Japan. And this is a redesign of the old package.

Himono is dried fish that has been dried. Drying reduces the water content and prevents the fish from spoiling, making it more delicious. The traditional way of drying is with a bamboo colander. This gold paper packaging was designed to resemble a bamboo colander so that this was immediately apparent. It’s flat and simple, but it looks like it’s three-dimensional and knitted.This is an illusion.

Lift the brand tag on the package and insert a pouch of dried fish into the gap and the package is complete. It won the Gold award of the pentawards 2020.

What’s Unique?
In general, the outline of a bamboo colander is round, but if you make the shape round, there will be more small holes in the corners. So I designed it based on the triangle and eliminated the waste. As a result, it does not roll over and can be displayed better and can be produced at a lower cost due to the reduction of manual labor, resulting in a more impactful design.