New Year Gift Ka Pahu Makana no ka Makahiki Hou

Press Kit

Unique Properties

It is a gift box designed by Baidu Input Method for users. The intangible cultural heritage crafts of China allow users to feel the charms of Chinese culture.
The outer packing is a bamboo-weaved basket; the bellyband can be made into a tiger cap, interesting and resource-saving.
Inside the box is a calendar and traditional New Year painting plates. The interesting operation enhances traditional experience and shows the artistic features unique to Chinese culture.

Dimensions & Packaging

Outer package: foldable paper tape, specification: 350g coated paper (soft touch film), size: 26cm x 63.8cm, printing process: four-color printing, other process: ant line and indentation; bamboo basket, specification: 0.5mm thin bamboo strip, bamboo weaving process: weave the bamboo strip in a back-shaped pattern for ten times at the cover top, use the rattan bark to wrap four corners for reinforcement, bend the bamboo to round corner at the box opening under high temperature, and twine the rattan bark for reinforcement. Size: 26cm x 16cm x 15.
Inter package: size 1: 22.5cm x 14cm x 5cm, specification: 120g special straw paper, printing process: four-color laser printing, size 2: 22.5cm x 14cm x 1cm, specification: 120g special straw paper, printing process: four-color laser printing.
Calendar: engraved, specification: 1.5cm pine board, size: 18cm x 11cm x 1.5cm; calendar frame, material: beech, size: 12cm x 8cm x 4cm; inside page, specification: 200g special paper, size: 18cm x 11cm, overall process: engraving, ancient-style rubbing, laser scanning, single-color printing.
Couplet: specification: 120g paper with rough texture (a special paper), size: 22cm x 13.5cm, process: Chinese elaborate-style Fengxiang New Year painting, laser scanning, four-color laser printing;
Toolkit: Mushroom Cloud, material: wood, size: 12cm x 5cm x 5cm; plate, material: porcelain, size: 10cm x 10cm x 2.5cm; brush, size: 15cm x 4cm x 2cm; ink pen with brush tip; ink
User’s Guide: material: parchment paper, size: 22.5cm x 14cm, printing process: four-color printing.

Tags

Gift packaging, New Year, traditional Chinese culture, intangible cultural heritage, handicraft

Production Technology

Bamboo basket, also the outer packing of the gift box, applies the traditional thin-thread bamboo weaving craft, demonstrating the sense of beauty of being warm and soft, and also usefulness. The cover of the calendar applies the Fengxiang New Year woodprints craft. After ten steps, from drafting to coloring, and then by rubbing on rice paper with corresponding tools, the traditional craft which has been on the wane can be perfectly presented.

Design Challenge

Take into full consideration the combination of traditional culture and daily life to design a gift box that is ideal for family interaction. In the process, the handmade part is full of challenges and requires times of tries if the best effect is expected.

Research

Paintings on the Spring Festival were mostly known as "paintings celebrating the Spring Festival" in ancient times. Bamboo baskets are often seen in such paintings. Since the Warring States Period and the Qin and Han Dynasties, hufu (a tiger-shaped tally issued to generals for troop movement) became popular. Given the awe-inspiring image of tigers, people in the late Qing Dynasty expected to protect children against demons with tiger, so tiger cap began to prevail.

Inspiration

Intangible cultural heritage is the carrier and crystallization of cultural development in China, but it is being weakened. On the occasion of the Chinese New Year, we dig deeper China's folk culture, and draw such intangible crafts as bamboo weaving, tiger cap, woodblock engraving, hand-painted New Year pictures before integrating them into the design of the New Year gift box in the hope of showing and reshaping the charms of traditional Chinese culture.

Project Duration

The project was launched in Beijing in November 2021, and the design was completed and product issued to users within the territory of China in January 2022.

Operation Flow

Steps of woodblock printing of the calendar are as follows: preparation, that is, put the woodblock evenly on the table and pour some ink into the porcelain dish; inking, that is, coat the surface of the woodblock with ink, put the woodblock still for 10 seconds before coating it with ink for a second time; printing, that is, cover the woodblock with the printing paper, press it with a wood mushroom (a wood mushroom-shaped tool), and then take the paper away.