The Vietnam Lunar New Year is marked with a special edition Coca-Cola can that celebrates 'new beginnings'.
The Vietnamese New Year, otherwise known as Tet, has been celebrated by Coca-Cola with a festive redesign of its canned drink. Created by Vietnamese agency Ki Saigon, the special packaging design looks totally different to any other Cola products and stays respectful to country's culture.
"Tet means “new beginnings” above all," explains Ki Saigon. "It is a time of renewal, forward thinking and time to instil a strong sense of belief in the good things to come. We wanted our design to be a signal of that emotion."
The design is loaded with plenty of characters and symbols that communicate this sense of a new start while also acknowledging the event's cultural significance. For example, the five fruit plate is an ancient ritual, with each fruit chosen and their arrangement holds cultural resonance.
At the heart of the design is a swallow, whose arrival used to signal the arrival of spring time. Considering that Tet was a time when harvest was over and spring was just around the corner, it's not surprising that sighting the bird made people the season had arrived.
Swallows traditionally signalled the arrival of spring time
In a fortunate coincidence for Ki Saigon, one of the main colours associated with Tet, red, is also the main colour of the Coca-Cola global design guideline. To set the design off, other Tet colours like gold and silver were used for the detailing.
Red and gold are the two most auspicious colours of Tet, which fits perfectly into Cola's brandlines
Dom Carter is a freelance writer who specialises in art and design. Formerly a staff writer for Creative Bloq, his work has also appeared on Creative Boom and in the pages of ImagineFX, Computer Arts, 3D World, and .net. He has been a D&AD New Blood judge, and has a particular interest in picture books.
