SEAWEED | DESIGN NORI | 2012

The Blind Spot: Designing the Seaweed Itself / SEAWEED "DESIGN NORI"

Using a laser cutter to etch patterns into sheets of nori that hadn't changed in 500 years. The idea of designing the product itself, not the package, was a total blind spot.

The problem

Umino Seaweed Store in Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, was already struggling with slumping sales when the 2011 tsunami damaged its production base too. The client asked for a new package design. But I&S BBDO didn't touch the packaging at all.

The insight

Maybe what needed changing wasn't the wrapper, but the nori itself. They bet on rewriting the essence of a product that hadn't changed in 500 years, using modern technology.

The idea

Using a laser cutter, they etched traditional Japanese patterns—cherry blossoms, polka dots, hemp leaf, tortoiseshell, linked tortoiseshell—directly onto the nori. They chose patterns symbolizing growth and long life as a wish for people after the disaster. To cut precisely, they used thick nori from Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture. There was even a plan to sell the cut-off scraps as furikake seasoning.

What happened

In 2012, it won BEST in the Design/Lotus category at ADFEST and Gold in the Design category at Cannes Lions. It was also exhibited at the "KATAGAMI Style" exhibition at the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, and the 840 yen product kept selling out.

Afterthought

The courage to answer "we want to fix the packaging" with "let's fix the product itself." In the aftermath of the disaster, the act of etching hope into a pattern feels close to prayer. And that prayer earned recognition around the world.

Awards

Cannes Lions Gold 2012

Three more the bear picked for you

Breath Became the Game Controller / RESPIRATORY APP "Alvio"

▶

RESPIRATORY APP | Alvio | 2014

Breath Became the Game Controller / RESPIRATORY APP "Alvio"

Kids with asthma hate breathing exercises. But what if your breath itself became the controller for a game? Alvio made a game where a pufferfish swims just by you breathing in and out.

30 years later, your stomach still remembers / NISSIN FOOD "HUNGRY? III UINTATHERIUM"

▶

NISSIN FOOD | HUNGRY? III UINTATHERIUM | 1994

30 years later, your stomach still remembers / NISSIN FOOD "HUNGRY? III UINTATHERIUM"

This is the Uintatherium installment, from 1994. It's part of the era when the series that had already stunned the world with mammoths and moas was still going strong. A caveman gets tossed around by a giant mammal, but in the end there's just the word "hungry?" and that white cup with red. By now this rhythm needs no explanation. It's one of the sequels in the series that won the Grand Prix at Cannes as a whole and became a landmark in Japanese advertising history.

A wooden ball rolls down a hill, and the world holds its breath / NTT DOCOMO "XYLOPHONE"

▶

NTT DOCOMO | XYLOPHONE (森の木琴) | 2011

A wooden ball rolls down a hill, and the world holds its breath / NTT DOCOMO "XYLOPHONE"

44 meters long, built on a forest slope. A giant wooden xylophone playing Bach's Cantata No. 147. No CGI, no sound added afterward, just wooden balls rolling down and down. And yet people all over the world held their breath watching it. This is what simple really means.