Sushi

Research and findings

My target audience for this project was ideally sock or sushi lovers who wanted a novelty product centred around the Japanese sushi theme. The product would be marketed as the perfect gift for those that have everything.

This product’s packaging would be made from 100% FSC recycled bamboo fibres. Bamboo is known for being a renewable and low-cost material.

Development

During my sketching process I decided to add on additional takeaway chopsticks for the packaging solution, this continued the sushi theme.

Some of these ideas and many more were quickly prototyped in 3d using templates. I found that circular shaped packaging fit best due to circular shape of the packaging.

The longer cylindrical shape was used as it fit about 3 pairs of socks.

I researched the various sushi themed packaging graphics, many of these ideas were printed and prototyped to get a sense of the product. While completing this activity I decided to change the packaging dependent on the colour or the different sock products such as green socks could be cucumber ‘flavour’ and pink socks could be ‘salmon’ flavoured.

Branding

After setting on a concept for my packaging I begun to work on the branding, the brand was initially going to be called ‘Kutsushita’ which means socks in Japanese, however I decided to push the branding further into the sushi collection which could be used for various other clothing products.

Key takeaways

Prototype early and often
Prototyping helps visualise what the final concept will look like and work like. By prototyping as much as possible it opens possibilities and helps to narrow down ideas. Some ideas can often sound good such as my large hexagonal box sound good when in reality would be too cumbersome and would be selling too many pairs of socks. Prototyping rapidly assists with preventing failure later on.