Asian

This image comes from a reusable shopping bag made by the company Blue-Q. They have a great assortment of products, mostly makeup and toiletries, but all distinguished and covetable for their exquisitely detailed packaging. They seem to create a whole new, very twee world for each new brand/theme they come up with. This bag is no exception. It was part of a tongue-in-cheek, vintage Asian-inspired line, which includes Chinese characters in the design. I think the scale and colors do a good job of making the typography part of the design, giving a somewhat more authentic look to the images (some of which remind me of vintage Chinese propaganda posters in terms of color and image choices). Seeing the characters/alphabet from a language I don't read or speak makes it so much more obvious how much typography can be integrated into and contribute to a design, without the distraction of reading the words, and the words in English seem quite bland in comparison. Though I do wonder what the bag says when I carry it around.