Independent Project

The HONOKA gift shop branding project aimed at developing an original brand of a Japanese gift shop.The idea behind the HONOKA was the Japanese Summer festival and honoka means a “subtle scent” in Japanese. There are a lot of different types of traditional summer festivals, such as Nebuta Matsuri, Tanabata Matsuri and Bon odori. The design of the logo presents the light of a lantern. In summer festivals, it is used a lot of Chochin or Tourou, which means a lantern in English. The circle in the logo shows Chochin. This logo combined brand name by handwriting with chochin.

The incense has used the scents of the flowers, like Camellia, Cherry blossoms, and Autumn cherry. As a background was chosen the Awaodori dancers, which is one of the famous dances in Japan.

The scent of the candles is used citrus, like Ginger, Citrus Sphaerocarpa, and Citrus Junos. For bringing the summer festival atmosphere on the packaging, by putting the fireworks as a background can create more atmosphere of the Japanese summer festival.

Also, the wood frame being used by kit designs so that it can be reused as a Japanese style lantern.