Press Release
Huong Incense Branding and Packaging by Huy Nguyen Tran Receives the Bronze A' Design Award in Advertising, Marketing and Communication Design
The international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition recognizes Huy Nguyen Tran for advertising, marketing and communication design
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 17, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ Huong Incense Branding and Packaging by Huy Nguyen Tran, designed for Huong, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Advertising, Marketing and Communication Design category, A' Design Award & Competition has announced. The award was conferred within the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
About the Bronze A' Design Award
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
Regarding Huong Incense Branding and Packaging
Huong is a branding and packaging project for a contemporary Vietnamese incense brand. The design reinterprets ancestor worship as a calm sensory ritual for younger generations. Colors follow the Five Elements, and the packaging structure is derived from the Six Harmonies and the traditional three compartment house. The set includes a hexagonal master box, six inner incense boxes, two incense holders and printed materials. A companion website named Gap extends the same visual system, allowing visitors to interact with ancestral silhouettes formed from their own shadow.
About Huy Nguyen Tran
Huy Nguyen Tran is a designer based in Ho Chi Minh City. He focuses on creating thoughtful, user-centered work that blends clarity with craft. With experience across diverse projects and environments, he is known for collaborating closely with stakeholders, turning complex requirements into simple systems and visuals, and delivering results on time. His work aims to improve daily life, communicate ideas effectively, and support businesses and communities through practical, scalable design solutions.
Award Record
Huy Nguyen Tran is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Advertising, Marketing and Communication Design Award
The A' Advertising Design Award is an international advertising design competition recognizing good advertisement designs by designers and agencies worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to advertising designers, marketing professionals, communication designers and creative directors from all countries. Typical entries include advertisement campaigns, billboards, commercials, print ads, social media campaigns and direct mails. The awarded advertising designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/advertising
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/178292
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/178292
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!178292
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/376008
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Huong Incense Branding and Packaging
- Function
- Branding and Packaging
- Category
- Advertising, Marketing and Communication Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Branding & Advertising
- Colors
- Black, Dark Slate Gray, Sea Green and Dark Olive Green
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Huong
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Huy Nguyen Tran
- Country
- Viet Nam
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #178292
Credits
- Team
- Huy Nguyen, Linh Bui, Thanh Nguyen, An Do, Mai Phuong Le, Thien My Bui, Thanh Dang, Thu Pham, Khanh Nguyen and Ha Van Minh
- Image Credits
- Huong 2025, Vietnam All right reserved
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Huong (Scent) is a contemporary incense brand that reinterprets Vietnamese ancestor worship for younger generations through a refined sensory-wellness ritual. Distinctive strengths include a heritage-led identity system, Five Elements color logic, and packaging architecture derived from Six Harmonies and traditional three-compartment house typology. The project is extended by Gap (Meet), an interactive platform where users’ shadow-based ancestral silhouettes connect personal memory with collective lineage.
- Inspiration
- Huong was inspired by Vietnam’s fading tradition of ancestor worship and the profound symbolism of incense as a bridge between worlds. Through cultural research on Vietnamese rituals, Vietnamese Gods, Spiritual Deities, Five Elements Theory, and the Yin–Yang philosophy, the project reinterprets these heritage elements into modern packaging and digital experiences—reviving spiritual values and reconnecting younger generations with their ancestral roots.
- Research
- This project uses qualitative cultural and design research. Our objective was to renew Vietnamese ancestor worship for younger generations. We combined desk research, visual analysis, and iterative prototyping, using historical references, folklore symbols, packaging mockups, and interaction wireframes. Team critiques and user readability checks guided refinement. The result is a clear, heritage-led brand experience that strengthens cultural continuity and makes ritual practice more approachable in modern life.
- Challenge
- The hardest part was modernizing a sacred tradition without reducing it to decoration. We needed to balance spiritual authenticity with contemporary aesthetics across language, form, and interaction. Another challenge was building one coherent narrative across packaging and digital media. Through repeated cultural review and design iteration, we achieved a system that feels both respectful and relevant to younger audiences.
- Realization and Technology
- We developed Huong through a research-led creative process that blends cultural storytelling with contemporary brand execution. The system includes identity design, pattern development, structural packaging prototyping, 3D visualization, and interactive web design. From logo to layout, each element was refined through iterative testing to keep the experience meaningful, clear, and emotionally engaging across print, object, and digital touchpoints.
- Operation and Interaction
- The experience begins as users open the hexagonal master box, revealing six incense sets arranged like chapters of a story. Each box unfolds smoothly, guiding the user through layers of discovery—from lighting incense, uncovering its meaning, knowing more about Ancestral Worshipping and Vietnamese Incense Village. The Gap (Meet) website extends this ritual digitally, letting users interact with ancestral silhouettes inspired by their own shadow—turning a simple act into a personal, spiritual reunion.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in April 2025 and finished in November 2025 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Specifications
- The set includes 1 hexagonal master box, 6 inner incense boxes, 2 incense holders, and supporting printed materials (brochure, leaflet, instruction card). The structure is based on Six Harmonies and a three-panel opening inspired by traditional Vietnamese altar-house layouts. The package combines symbolic storytelling and practical usability, while the Gap (Meet) website extends the same visual system into an interactive digital ritual journey.
- Keywords
- Renovative, Original, Respect, Nostalgic, Mythical
