The Thirsty Ass: Liquor Container Design

We at the Donkey have two deep loves (aside from food of course): fine liquor and good design. Bring the two together, and witness the transmogrification of The Hungry Donkey into 'The Thirsty Ass'. In this long awaited first installment of 'The Thirsty Ass' we will take a tour of the latest and greatest in liquor packaging design.

Along with bottled water and perfume, liquor is one of the most challenging and exciting products to design packaging for. As a product, it has virtually no distinct visual qualities, it is shapeless, often colourless, and visually indistinguishable from rival products. Whereas a solid object dictates the shape of its packaging, a liquid takes on the shape of whatever container it is held in. Not only does this remove the normal constraints on the shape of the container, it also forces the container to visually define the product. Furthermore, liquor is something we consume to alter our emotional state. We drink it to temporarily transform into different people. So the container should, in some way, represent the kind of person that (we believe) liquor can help us to become. I other words, it should project an element of magic.

The first product is an amazake produced by the Morinaga Company.

Check out the restraint of the one colour printing, the happy little flowers, and the puffy white clouds. Funky, yet peaceful and unassuming. It's kind of like a mix between a Charlie Watts drum riff and a Hello Kitty dreamscape.

 

Next up we've got Yaoki Shochu. The bottle is a gorgeous piece of minimal sculpture in itself. It would make a fine urn for your ashes somewhere down the line. The labeling demonstrates traditional Japanese restraint updated in a techno-geometric composition. It makes me think of both architecture and Japanese pictographic characters. Looks like orange and white are where its at these days in Japan.

 Another minimal design, this time from Wyborowa Vodka. At first glance, this bottle seems to be overly derivative of Absolut's pioneering text on clear glass bottle. The design also co-opts the same trick used by Grey Goose of printing an image in reverse. The uniqueness of this design, is the way the text in blue, printed on the outside of the bottle, matches up with the text in grey, printed in reverse on the opposite side of the bottle. The phonetic aid of the (Z) above the name is also a nice touch.

 

Keeping with the text-only phonetic playfulness, we've got this design by ri 1, pronounced "rye one". Not knowing that it was rye whisky when I first saw the label, it took me a while to figure it out, but sometimes we donkeys need a little extra time.  A fine demonstration of the simple elegance of typography.

Last but not least, check out this optical illusion from Samurai Vodka. Corny? ... Maybe, but we donkeys are suckers for sight gags. You've also got to appreciate how a Russian company is taking vodka--the very symbol of Russia--and marketing it with a Japanese name and theme. It's a bizarre reversal of the old trick performed by the American vodka, Smirnoff, defrauding the consumer with an invented Russian name. Perhaps we're witnessing the emergence of a new species of cultural hybrid born from the forces of globalization. Let's see if MacDonald's comes out with a new stroganoff burger, then you'll know I'm on to something.