sonae-ume

Sonae-ume

Client: BambooCut inc.
Design Company: KITADA DESIGN inc.
Creative Direction: Jumpei Takeuchi
Art Direction & Design: Shingo Kitada
Country: Japan

Sonae-ume was born after the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes. During the earthquake, many people in particular children, were unable to eat and brush their teeth. Such deprivation caused restricted saliva production that led to many critical medical conditions and diseases.

Umeboshi (sour plum in Japanese) has been around over 1000 years and has many health benefits such as increasing saliva production. How can we mobilize umeboshi? And how can it exist as a disaster prevention product? To tackle these questions, we decided to focus on the “thankful” element. Normally, disaster prevention products are “items that you would avoid to buy, if you could”. And such items are usually cheap with little or no room for design.

We wanted to challenge this conception. To develop a product that can be given as a “thankful” gift - a new attitude towards disaster prevention products. The umeboshi is prepared using traditional methods by skilled craftsmen and the packaging is designed in a way so it can be carried like an amulet.