Reproduce the peak of the minimalist aesthetics of the Song Dynasty.
Recently, Kylin Spirits Group invited the famous European designer "Liu Bai" to design a bottle for its new product, Kylin DS Chinese whiskey.
Looking back at the whole process, there are three major factors that contributed to the success of this cooperation, one is the design requirements of The Kirin Spirits Group: using Western expressions to reproduce the minimalist aesthetics of the Song Dynasty in China; the second is that Liu Bai's father is a crazy "Song fan", kylin DS bottles may become his last commercial work; the third is that the Kylin Spirits Group agrees not to publish the designer's name, only the pseudonym Liu Bai.
The inspiration for bottle design
According to foreign media reports, the birth of Kylin DS Chinese whisky flavor originated from the landmark fusion of Scottish single malt whisky and the liquor (National Cellar 1573) brewed by the 1573 National Treasure Cellar Pond Group in Luzhou, China, and aged in Changbai Mountain Mongolian Oak Oak Barrel for secondary maturation. The cooperation project was jointly developed and launched by Qilin Spirits Group and the world famous wine company Luzhou Laojiao, and has gained fame in the whisky industry in recent years.
The designer skillfully integrates the eastern and western plastic arts and material craftsmanship, and reproduces the minimalist aesthetic peak of the Song Dynasty in China with the concept of "combining East and West", highlighting the corporate culture concept of "What brings us together" of Qilin Spirits Group.
In the selection of materials, the designers broke the conventional selection of materials and boldly adopted ceramics and glass, the two most representative utensils and materials of the East and the West. In the ideological and cultural core, when people connect "porcelain-China", the impression of "glass-West" is also juxtaposed.
I don't know when Western countries called porcelain from the Far East "china", fine porcelain became the most beautiful impression of China in the first place in Westerners, and glass that was indiscriminately coveted on the European continent was inseparable from the Western mercantilist thinking orientation.
Especially in the past five hundred years of history, glass has made a breakthrough contribution to the development and observation of modern science and commerce, and has become one of the basic tools for human beings to see the world from different perspectives. By organically combining these two seemingly "conflicting and contradictory" materials, the brand concept of "promoting cultural exchanges between the East and the West" is conveyed in the collision and integration.
A combination of East and West
Reproduce the peak of the minimalist aesthetics of the Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a prosperous period of cultural development in Chinese history, and Chinese classical aesthetics reached its peak in the Song Dynasty. "Beauty" is an indispensable ordinary thing in the life of the Song people, who extended the aesthetics of art to all aspects of daily life and penetrated into various daily bowls, plates, cups, and cups. Therefore, the Song Dynasty is also known as the "Era of Porcelain", and the "Five Famous Kilns" - Ruguan GeJunding, all reflect the clarity and elegance under the prosperity and prosperity.
In the design of the bottle body of Kylin DS, Liu Bai did not adopt the mainstream round bottle or square bottle style of whisky in the world, and also abandoned the design style of contemporary Chinese mainstream bottles, but adopted a refreshing and unique oval design, with a classic aspect ratio of 2:1. In the eyes of Westerners, the ellipse symbolizes an eternal vitality, representing the imagery and meaning of endless life.
The detailed design of the bottle type is a reference and application of the minimalist aesthetics of the Chinese Song Dynasty, and the overall shape is in plain and elegant, with a simple and pure artistic sense and enduring oriental poetry. The lines are clean and neat, showing the Chinese philosophy of "harmony" everywhere, rather than the structural expression of the lines in the West.
The more simple the more classic
The more subtle the more profound
There is an old Chinese saying called "the road to simplicity", and to make simplicity to the extreme is great beauty, which is similar to the minimalist proposition of "Less is more" in the West. The glaze on the half of the Kylin DS bottle is as white as gelatin, light and elegant, without complicated pattern embellishments, just like a large blank space of classical Chinese art, which is also the reason why the designer alias Liu Bai, which means that life is blank, and it is also the blank space of his artistic career.
Visually, it not only highlights the family badge-style wine label, but also sets off the wonderful luster of the golden wheat color in the glass. The flow of light and shadow, the extremely transparent glass covered with seductive liquor, which is also one of the reasons why the Western "water of life" is mostly packed in transparent glass bottles.
The curve connecting the porcelain glaze and the glass is extremely expressive, which is not only the poetic and flexible lines in the traditional Chinese ink landscape, but also the wonderful realm of the Song landscape painting "super image outside the super open and ethereal", with the metaphysical vivid charm of "the momentum of thousands of miles at hand"; it is also the waist line displayed when the Chinese beast Qilin flies, which has an aesthetic sense of sublimeness and shows the rhythm of life.
On closer inspection, the craftsmanship details of the porcelain-glass combination represent the corporate quality of The Kirin Spirits Group's pursuit of excellence, but the combination of porcelain and glass inspiration is not so easy to achieve. The oval flat bottle type undoubtedly increases the difficulty of production, and the molded porcelain can hardly bite the concave glass.
In the process of R&D and production of wine bottles, Qilin Spirits Group spent 34 months searching for representative ceramic factories in 9 countries such as the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, breaking through several technical problems in the industry, and finally adopting the solution of hand-glazed porcelain glaze to achieve the ideal effect of the junction of porcelain glaze and glass.
The cap design adopts the traditional Chinese gold color, and the logo image of the Qilin Spirits Group is engraved on it. In ancient China, gold was a dedicated color that symbolized enterprising power and royal authority. The shape of the bottle cap is in line with the overall Chinese aesthetics, drawing on the introverted characteristics of the traditional Chinese architectural plan, and designing the flat-top style, and the grandeur is instantly revealed.
Intention and qi are harmonious, and the human bottle is one
The highest aesthetic realm of traditional Chinese creation is "the unity of heaven and man", Kylin DS Chinese whisky bottle from the beginning of the idea, determined to build from aesthetics, ergonomics, materials science.
When consumers appreciate and play with Kylin DS Chinese whiskey bottles, the feeling of "human bottle in one" is born. It is as if you are holding not just a bottle of whiskey, but a work of art full of Song style——— simple to elegant, simple to humble.
What do you think of the classical aesthetic of Kylin DS's "combination of East and West"? Leave a message at the end of the article waiting for you to share!
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