Aquetha 清酒包装 by Tacto Inc. is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2024 A' Design Award 银奖 in 包装设计 Competition Category.

银包装· 2024

Aquetha 清酒包装

by Tacto Inc.

Client: Tacto Inc

A' Design Award 银奖 Winner in 包装 Category

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The Design

About Aquetha 清酒包装

Aquetha 是一款为日本陈年清酒打造的包装与品牌设计。瓶体由玻璃艺术家手工制作，并借由重力自然成形，呈现出温润的圆弧曲线，寓意时光的流转。这一圆润的造型也有助于清酒装瓶后的平顺陈化。透明标签采用无墨压凸的活版印刷工艺，以呼应冰温熟成所具有的澄澈气质。简约的外盒在盒盖与盒身之间设有一道凹槽，用以表现陈酿的时间轨迹。整体设计将陈年清酒呈现为一件艺术作品，而非寻常商品。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 银奖

Aquetha 清酒包装是 A' Design Award 银奖得主，这是授予顶级、华美而令人印象深刻的设计的极为崇高的认可。银奖得主是极其卓越、极具创造力的作品，展现出其设计师杰出的专业技能、才华与敏锐。预计Aquetha 清酒包装将成为一件出色的典范之作，兼具非凡的专业性与深刻的创新性。这件赢得 A' Design Award 银奖的设计是一项备受瞩目、令人钦佩的发明，造福并拓展艺术、科学、设计和技术的边界。Aquetha 清酒包装是一件令人羡慕的创作，它唤起渴望，带来积极的情感，并激发惊叹与赞叹。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

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.
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.
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.
Team Members: Creative Director: Hayato Itakura
Strategist/Copy Writer: Takuro Nakajima
Art Director: Kohei Futakuchi
Visual Designer: Kazuya Sakamoto
Image Credits: Photographer: Masato Ishibashi
Glass Artist: Yutaro Kijima