The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2025–2026
WAZU's 728mm scroll labels turn low-polish sake into journeys — iF Gold 2026
THREE Inc.'s luxury sake brand bottles unfiltered low-polish brews inside picture-scroll labels telling each region's story — first sake to win iF Gold.
THREE Inc. · canaria inc.
What it had to solve
THREE Inc., a Tokyo venture founded in March 2024 with the mission "create a Japan to be proud of", set out to build a luxury sake brand. The category's prestige route was ever-higher rice polishing; THREE chose its opposite — unfiltered namazake from low-polished rice — and asked Tokyo brand studio canaria inc. to give that defiance a physical form.
How it works
In March 2025, Tokyo venture THREE Inc. announced WAZU (和圖), a luxury sake brand whose name puns on drawing a map of Japan. The founding idea, says THREE, is to put "the hidden beauty of Japan in a glass": sake brewed so that each sip leads the drinker to a place and a brewer they have not met.
That meant deliberately turning against the modern premium trend. WAZU's brews use low-polished rice and skip filtration, pasteurisation and dilution — unfiltered namazake that stays alive, changes flavour and must be drunk young. THREE framed the fragility as the point: a once-in-a-lifetime encounter (ichigo-ichie), with seasonal runs from partner breweries such as Akita, Nagano and Kyoto.
The packaging turns that stance into an object. Brand studio canaria inc. designed a 728-mm tapered label evoking Japanese picture scrolls that wraps around the bottle, overlaying form and colour as it spirals. Each label carries bilingual travel writing drawn from real visits to the brewery, plus gold-embossed paper and a seal of seven cups standing for the collaborating breweries. Red Dot's jury praised the integration of packaging, storytelling and cultural reference as a layered brand experience.
WAZU went on sale in April 2025 and the concept travelled quickly: the Japan Pavilion at Cannes served it in May 2025, Japanese luxury hotels took it on, exports began to Hong Kong and Taiwan, and New York Michelin restaurants asked for it. In 2026 it took iF Gold — THREE states the first for a sake brand since iF's 1953 founding — plus a Red Dot Product Design award, the Good Design Award and a DFA, and a spring 2026 Ginza SIX pop-up with a fourth label.
Why it lands
- It chose an anti-consensus product axis — low polish, unfiltered, unstable — when prestige sake marketing ran on heavy polishing and stability.
- Packaging was designed as the brand, not decoration: the scroll label makes every bottle a readable journey story.
- The system scales by design: seven-cup seals, coordinates and changing seasonal partners mean each new brewery release is a new chapter.
- The brief was framed as cultural export ("a Japan to be proud of"), giving awards and luxury channels a narrative to champion.
What it did
The brand launched in April 2025 and within a year was served at the Cannes Film Festival's Japan Pavilion, adopted by leading Japanese luxury hotels, exported to Hong Kong and Taiwan, and courted by Michelin-starred New York restaurants. In 2026 the packaging won iF Gold — which THREE says is the first for a sake brand in the award's history — alongside Red Dot Product Design, Japan's Good Design Award and Hong Kong's DFA awards.
What you can take
When a category converges on one axis of quality, the opposite axis can define a brand — and when the story is the product, let the package itself carry the story.
Since then
THREE kept adding seasonal limited releases and opened WAZU's first physical store as a spring 2026 pop-up at Ginza SIX, with all four labels on sale and tastings. Exports to Hong Kong and Taiwan had begun within the first year, and shipments for Michelin-starred New York restaurants were being prepared. canaria logged the gold as its 18th iF award and third iF Gold; the project also took Red Dot Product Design, Japan's Good Design Award and a DFA merit. The packaging became a reference point for counter-trend positioning rather than a one-off trophy.
Sources
- Red Dot Design Award: WAZU
- 新たなラグジュアリー日本酒ブランド「和圖（WAZU）」誕生 (WAZU launch release)
- iF DESIGN AWARD 2026 Gold受賞の日本酒ブランド「和圖／WAZU」、GINZA SIXに登場
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