We speak to Ou Junzhong at BXL Creative Packaging, a leading comprehensive solution provider of product engineering in China, to hear how they help domestic brands get into the international market and their process for translating Chinese culture into branding and packaging design.

Can you tell us a bit about BXL Creative Packaging?

Founded in 1999, BXL Creative Packaging is a leading comprehensive solution provider of product engineering in China, committed to providing customers with a four-in-one comprehensive creative packaging service model of "brand strategy, creative design, technology research and development, and production logistics". Our aim is to create best-selling products and a strong brand.

Headquartered in Luohu, Shenzhen, the company has more than 600 employees, and there are more than 60 people working for our design team. Our clients include cosmetics, luxury, wine, tea, food and FMCG sector. We have been working with a number of China's top liquor brands, such as the famous Moutai, Yanghe, Niulanshan, Jiji Grain, as well as international brands Gucci, Victoria's Secret, Bulgari, Disney, and so far we have created more than 30,000 products.

Tell us a little bit about your role?

As a Creative Director for the entire group, I am the design executor and the project manager, leading the team from market research to the execution of the design.

Our main clients are cosmetics, luxury goods, and wine packaging design, which we create unique packaging for based on brand attributes and product characteristics . The customer's product culture and market demand is used to identify the core selling point of the product and to create a best-selling product packaging, which includes illustrations, graphic designs, containers, and packaging design.

What makes BXL Creative Packaging stand out?

Based on the brand culture, we value originality over everything and always encourage our team to be peculiar and bold with their design. We also have a specific way of evaluating our work — that is, through the six dimensions of innovation: new style, new material, new craftmanship, new box type, new structure, new containers.

We invest time in in-depth research on the consumer market and target consumer groups, analyzing the core selling points and market demand to find a perfect balance between business and art. As a result, we create a product packaging design that combines aesthetic beauty and advantage in the market.

In China, the timeline is very compact. A design-only project will take about 15 days, and the cycle is about 45 days for the other bigger project with brand planning that involves case research, market research, brand concepts, and advertising product naming. In the process of doing these projects, it is very interesting, and of course, many difficulties will be encountered. As the process of globalization accelerates, product competition intensifies, and product homogeneity becomes serious, it is particularly important to tap the uniqueness and differentiation of products.

China is a country with a vast territory with a rich and long history, and the profound cultural heritage and the different cultural characteristics of many ethnic groups have also created cultural diversity. As a designer, I will also try my best to excavate and protect our precious national culture and use modern visual language to re-extract this traditional Chinese culture and elements and spread them all over the world.

Regarding the demand for packaging in the luxury sector, what's different in China compared to other markets?

China's local luxury goods are scarce like those centuries-old enterprises are few, but the needs of the Chinese luxury goods market are huge, and much traditional Chinese craftsmanship is very suitable for luxury goods, such as Chinese porcelain, Chinese Su embroidery, Gold inlays, etc. Most of China's luxury goods are traditional handcrafted products, so on the packaging, the craftsmanship, materials and texture are used to highlight the cultural characteristics of the product.

Can you share some exciting projects you have been working on in the past?

We have many projects that reflect the unique culture in China, for example, the first one Hot Nest. In order to emphasize the advantages of Hot Nest with high-end and convenience, the packaging design reflects the "lightness, style and elegance" of the product, and incorporates the design style of "Lady Porcelain", to show the premium quality of the product.

The main colour of the packaging is the colour of Chinese porcelain, "Lady porcelain", which was used as a national banquet porcelain reception at the G20 summit. This noble and elegant material reflects the high-level of the symbol design, and is adopted alongside the traditional Chinese knot. In traditional Chinese culture, the Chinese knot has a beautiful meaning of happiness and peace. As a high-end gift for others, "Rewo", written on the packs, also implies good wishes and adopts the form of a swallow in the design of the font.

The other one is Yellow Crane Tower with oriental charm and profound meaning. In Chinese poetry, life is like climbing the tower, the more successful you are, the higher you will achieve at the tower, and the higher you go, the better scenery you will see. It's a way to encourage people to always motivate themselves. The packaging was inspired by the poetry; the outer box is presented in the form of a floor and contains two layers of meaning; first, the unique property of the brand - Yellow Crane Tower; second, the packaging reflects the different scenery of each level of the tower.

The design idea is to select the four famous Chinese buildings from the perspective of the brand, as a creative point combined with the box structure to reflect the beautiful meaning of the Chinese people to a higher level. Just like the progress and achievements of life have reached another height, such as career, the main product name uses Chinese calligraphy characters with strong recognition and oriental charm.

Find out more about BXL Creative Packaging