Gold Packaging Design · 2022
Johnnie Walker Limited Edition Packaging
by Ofen Hu
- A' Design Award 2022 Gold Winner in Packaging Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Diageo Foreign Wine Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 55,811
- Verification code CEA3921C18 · Verify this award
About Johnnie Walker Limited Edition Packaging
Johnnie Walker Limited Edition is a gift packaging design for a whisky bottle released for the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. The Mid-Autumn Festival is an important time for family reunion, so the themes are home, reunion and emotion. The design draws on the doors and windows of traditional Chinese architecture. The outer box opens as a double door, held closed by a magnet button in the centre, and reveals the bottle inside. Orchids, butterflies and auspicious clouds are depicted. Gilding and laser cutting are used on the box, and sandblasting is applied to the bottle.
Ofen Hu's packaging design for this limited edition spirits presentation represents a sophisticated synthesis of decorative arts traditions with contemporary luxury brand communication, demonstrating how cultural visual heritage may be thoughtfully reinterpreted for global audiences while maintaining authenticity and emotional resonance. The gatefold box structure suggests ceremonial unwrapping, transforming the act of accessing the product into a ritualized experience befitting celebratory occasions. The designer's compositional approach organizes botanical and geometric elements within a coherent visual system, where magnolia blossoms traditionally symbolizing nobility and perseverance interweave with butterflies suggesting transformation and joy, while stylized cloud formations reference auspicious imagery associated with prosperity and good fortune. The chromatic strategy proves particularly accomplished, utilizing deep blue as both unifying ground and premium signifier while strategic gold applications create focal hierarchy and warmth within the predominantly cool palette. Technical execution demonstrates mastery of contemporary packaging production, with precise registration evident in the multi-color printing, crisp metallic foil application, and structural engineering that allows the box to function both as protective container and display presentation. The relationship between primary packaging and bottle design reveals thoughtful design systems thinking, with decorative motifs adapted rather than merely repeated across different substrates and scales. This work invites consideration of how contemporary designers might honor traditional visual vocabularies while creating genuinely fresh aesthetic experiences, and how packaging design transcends mere containment to become a medium for cultural storytelling and emotional connection between maker and recipient.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This is a Johnnie Walker Blue Label 2021 Mid-Autumn Festival Limited Edition gift. The Mid-Autumn Festival is an important festival for family reunion in China. The key words are home, reunion and emotion. Slogan is "EMOTIONS COME FROM BLUE". The design inspiration comes from the door and window in traditional Chinese architecture. The outer packaging design adopts double-door opening box, when the door is opened, you can see the home directly, expressing reunion and emotion. When the lid opened, the picture of orchids blooming in the courtyard is also similar to the "Chinese Pingfeng".
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Length 15cm width 11.5cm height 36cm
- Tags
- Whisky, Packaging, Packaging Design, JOHNNIE WALKER BLUE Lab, Mid-Autumn Festival, China, Art, Painting
- Production Technology
- The packaging uses gilding and excitation techniques, as well as laser cutout technology to handle the visual senses of the packaging. Sandblasting technology was used on the bottle
- Design Challenge
- The most difficult parts of this packaging design are the size of the windows and the hardness of the paper, which needs to be aesthetic while taking supporting and protecting function that is critical during shipping into account. During the design process, the design of the windows was repeatedly adjusted and packaging production attempts were made.
- Project Duration
- Started on March 17, 2021, completed in Shenzhen on April 30, 2021, entered the market in October 2021
- Operation Flow
- The package is opened to the left and right. There is a magnet button in the middle, which lets the package open after it is unbuttoned. Expanding the outer package reveals the inner bottle design.
- Research
- In the packaging design, traditional Chinese wooden windows are used as the main vision of the outer packaging. Orchids, butterflies and Chinese auspicious clouds are the main depicting objects. Towering pavilions are built near the moon. The designer wishes to combine the auspicious cloud patterns with the lines of cake rolls, providing an unique visual experience. Blue is the brand symbol of JOHNNIE WALKER. Blue and orchids have the same pronunciation in Chinese, and are equated in the depiction. Orchids also symbolize “gentlemen” in Chinese culture since The Book of Songs is created.
- Inspiration
- "EMOTIONS COME FROM BLUE" comes from the Chinese idiom “blue is extracted from the indigo plant, but is bluer than it”. By creating through such themes, and adopting the culture of Mid-Autumn Festival, the designer temps to reflect how the people are becoming better and better by generation. The scene of the moonlight flattering some orchids in a courtyard is observed by looking through the gaps of the wooden windows that are traditionally built in Chinese courtyards. This helps presenting an intriguing experience of the traditional Chinese festival.
- Image Credits
- Image：Diageo Foreign Wine Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd