The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2023
YanChuan Vodka sands Sichuan scenery onto glass to show where the vodka comes from
YanChuan Vodka names itself after its mineral-salt filtration and sands Sichuan scenery onto transparent glass, making purity and provenance the design.
YanChuan Vodka · ShenZhen Lingyun Creative Packaging Design Co.
What it had to solve
YanChuan Vodka is made with a mineral-salt filtration technology, and the mineral salt is collected in Sichuan, nicknamed the Land of Abundance. The design task was to give a clear, neutral spirit a bottle that says where it comes from and how it was made.
How it works
YanChuan Vodka is made with a mineral-salt filtration technology, and the salt itself comes from Sichuan, a region nicknamed the Land of Abundance. Both facts were invisible to anyone holding a bottle.
Design agency ShenZhen Lingyun Creative Packaging Design made the provenance the design: transparent glass to show the vodka's purity, with Sichuan's scenery sanded onto the bottles in a subtle grey-and-white palette. Even the name keeps the method alive, referring to the filtration technology and the place where its mineral salt is gathered.
The result is a vodka whose packaging has no story to tell separately from its process: the bottle displays the liquid, the scenery names the place, and the branding refers to the technology. D&AD's awards archive files the work, and Chinese design press listed it among the shortlisted entries in the 2023 D&AD Awards.
Why it lands
- The name is the process: YanChuan memorializes the mineral-salt filtration, so brand and method are the same word.
- Transparent glass makes purity visible, and sanded scenery turns Sichuan's Land of Abundance into the artwork.
- A restrained grey-and-white treatment lets the technique carry the story without shouting.
- Nothing needs to be explained on a label because the object itself shows place, process and product at once.
What it did
The bottle's surface does the branding: the liquid is visible, the landscape names the region, and the product name records the process. D&AD's awards archive files the work, and Chinese design press listed the bottle among the shortlisted entries in the 2023 D&AD Awards.
What you can take
When a product's difference is invisible, put it where the buyer looks: a package that shows provenance and process can carry a brand the way words would.
Since then
The bottle design by ShenZhen Lingyun Creative Packaging Design was listed among the shortlisted entries of the 2023 D&AD Awards in the Chinese design press round-ups, and it appears in D&AD's awards archive alongside the studio's other work. The archive records no sales figures, so the case stands on the design decision: let a vodka's geography and filtration process become its visible identity.
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