Consumer Pastoral--Designer Peng Hsi-yi Celebrates Taiwan
Teng Sue-feng / photos courtesy of Arty Design / tr. by Josh Aguiar
December 2008
As a designer, Peng Hsi-yi may not have revolutionized the way Taiwan's agro-products are packaged, but there's no questioning the deep respect and understanding he has for country life. After all, from an early age growing up in Hsinchu County's Kuanhsi Township he watched his family cultivate tea, and he himself would accompany his grandmother, a steel pail in his young hands, on trips to the market to buy grass jelly.
Peng is 38 years old and a graduate of Chinese Culture University's Fine Arts Department. Since opening his own studio in 2003, he has been using his creative talents to revitalize the presentation of traditional local products such as nougat, pineapple cakes, grass jelly, and Hakka pickled vegetables.
The last character in his name, "yi," is an archaic character meaning "art" or "craft" whose shape suggests a person kneeling down tilling the fields with a hoe. When producing his designs, Peng wants to do more than infuse the product with artistic sensibility-he strives to enhance its commercial appeal. He feels that a good design is "one that strikes a chord with consumers and keeps the revenues flowing into the manufacturer's bank account."
A 900-gram ceramic container of dry daikon radish is secured in place by a frame made of tightly compressed recycled wood shavings that allows consumers to view the product and the wording on it. On the top of the frame's four corners are rattan-style paper cords that make for easy carrying.
Whenever Peng introduces this particular design at talks, he makes a point of suddenly pretending to throw it on the ground, to the gasps of the bewildered audience members. Then, breaking into a self-satisfied grin, he explains that, thanks to the effectiveness of the rope handle on top, this playful little act hasn't cost him a single article yet-the only drawback is that people can only carry one in each hand! But when people carry them about, the design's transparence offers a glimpse of the brand, which is effective, in-the-moment advertisement.
The aforementioned radish container, produced for Guo Jia Zhuang Hakka Pickles, is one of three designs that won awards at this year's German iF Communication Design Award. The second design is for Uncle Huan Mustard, and uses cardboard packaging on which are printed pretend reviews praising the product-an affectionate reference to the quaint countryside practice of wrapping pickled veggies in newspaper. Finally, there is his design for CHAngrila Green Tea, in which the organic green tea is contained in miniature woven baskets that are small-scale versions of the baskets used by traditional tea harvesters.
(left to right) CHAngrila green tea is presented in an ersatz tea basket. The Rare Seed Ranch Milk Nougat package series, ever popular with travelers, features tour maps on the reverse side of the cover. The real thrill is that the boxes emit a hearty "moo!" when opened, produced by a sensor-activated buzzer resonating in the box. Peng earned a patent for this ingenious design. He also won the German iF Communication Design Award for his design for Guo Jia Zhuang Hakka Pickles. He packed nougat candies in a camera-shaped box as a charming allusion to a famous confectioner's shop on Po-ai Street in Taipei, a street lined with camera stores. Hsinchu dried persimmons nest in a package that looks like a flower in bloom. Peng's designs for grass-jelly powder can be traced to his childhood memories in Kuanhsi seeing his grandmother take a steel pail with her on trips to buy grass jelly. Each of these efforts reveals a rich appreciation of Taiwan's past.
Defining a new image
In the past, the pungent flavors of pickled plums, fermented tofu, and fermented black beans were only available to the people of Kungkuan, Miaoli County, or those with a mind to make the trip to procure them in person. Back then, packaging these pickled items in either glass or ceramic containers was impractical. But today, thanks to superior packaging, Guo Jia Zhuang Pickle Shop has been able to sell their products at Taoyuan International Airport's duty-free shops since October 2006 as part of the Tung Blossom Festival activities sponsored by the Executive Yuan's Council of Hakka Affairs, allowing expatriates and tourists to take some Taiwanese soul food home with them.
In order to whet the curiosity of customers in search of novel flavors, Peng came up with a variety pack featuring small portions of six different flavors, including red yeast rice pickled tofu, pickled tofu, and seeds of fragrant manjack. The aim is that by casting a wider net, consumers will be more likely to encounter a flavor stimulating enough to warrant further purchases-in larger quantities, of course.
The inspiration for this design came from the original Guo Jia Zhuang Pickle Shop logo of five hexagons joined together in a honeycomb pattern. When he received a commission from the Council of Hakka Affairs in 2006, Peng began researching the history of the Guo Jia Zhuang Pickle Shop company, and soon discovered the originality of its founders' thinking.
In 1969, Kuo Chu-hung, father of current, third-generation company head Kuo Hsueh-mei, saw Neil Armstrong's team land on the moon in a hexagonal space shuttle, and was inspired to create the company insignia of six hexagons in a honeycomb arrangement. The honeycomb was symbolic as well, representing the bee's legendary diligence.
Peng was worried that younger Hakka might think that Guo Jia Zhuang was selling honey. He retained the hexagons for the shape of the glass jars, but dispensed with linking them together in the five-sided honeycomb pattern. Instead, he inserted the six tiny jars into a biodegradable paper pulp tray. On top of the hexagonal shell he attached a paper rope for ease of carrying.
(left to right) CHAngrila green tea is presented in an ersatz tea basket. The Rare Seed Ranch Milk Nougat package series, ever popular with travelers, features tour maps on the reverse side of the cover. The real thrill is that the boxes emit a hearty "moo!" when opened, produced by a sensor-activated buzzer resonating in the box. Peng earned a patent for this ingenious design. He also won the German iF Communication Design Award for his design for Guo Jia Zhuang Hakka Pickles. He packed nougat candies in a camera-shaped box as a charming allusion to a famous confectioner's shop on Po-ai Street in Taipei, a street lined with camera stores. Hsinchu dried persimmons nest in a package that looks like a flower in bloom. Peng's designs for grass-jelly powder can be traced to his childhood memories in Kuanhsi seeing his grandmother take a steel pail with her on trips to buy grass jelly. Each of these efforts reveals a rich appreciation of Taiwan's past.
Putting images to work
Since establishing his own business, Peng has gotten most of his work through the Hakka Affairs Council, the Council of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, who put up NT$100-400,000 per case to consult with businesses on how to makeover the marketing of agriculture and small town agro-tourism. These efforts have garnered him numerous awards.
People have voiced concern about whether giving a facelift to older brands and storefronts around the island will produce sound economic results. How should marketing strategies be changed to complement the new face of agro-business?
"Taiwanese farm products are like modest country girls-they need to be dressed and made up properly before presenting themselves," says Peng. Traditional industries are mired in the past because of their inability to comprehend today's changing consumer trends.
He explains that small-town folk are honest and uncalculating. In the past, they typically sold their products in larger quantities. Storeowners would omit their own salaries from calculations of overhead expenses, which lowered their earnings. Accordingly, he thinks that the way to get ahead despite rising raw material costs is to separate products into different, progressively priced grades, reduce portions, and restructure overhead costs.
For example, the urban outlets selling Uncle Huan Mustard-hardly an extravagant offering-apply a markup of more than 30%. According to Peng's calculations, the older large vacuum packaging cost NT$3-5 per unit, or about 6% of the retail total. His new design places five units in coated-card packaging that is printed in the style of old newspapers. The individually wrapped units are made visible by a plastic window in the middle. The new design actually is more costly at about NT$15, but upping the retail price from NT$50 to NT$125 greatly expands the profit margin-even if stores offer discounts of 20%, they still earn 70% over what they were making before.
(left to right) CHAngrila green tea is presented in an ersatz tea basket. The Rare Seed Ranch Milk Nougat package series, ever popular with travelers, features tour maps on the reverse side of the cover. The real thrill is that the boxes emit a hearty "moo!" when opened, produced by a sensor-activated buzzer resonating in the box. Peng earned a patent for this ingenious design. He also won the German iF Communication Design Award for his design for Guo Jia Zhuang Hakka Pickles. He packed nougat candies in a camera-shaped box as a charming allusion to a famous confectioner's shop on Po-ai Street in Taipei, a street lined with camera stores. Hsinchu dried persimmons nest in a package that looks like a flower in bloom. Peng's designs for grass-jelly powder can be traced to his childhood memories in Kuanhsi seeing his grandmother take a steel pail with her on trips to buy grass jelly. Each of these efforts reveals a rich appreciation of Taiwan's past.
Image isn't everything
Peng pours equal energy into designs for Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor, Rare Seed Ranch Milk Nougat, Kuanhsi grass jelly, Hakka-style pickled vegetables, pineapple cakes, and organic green tea. What factors then contribute to the broad success of some products while others remain unable to outgrow their provincial origins and markets?
"The determining factor is marketing," says Peng. "A superior product can have a great design, but if it's not marketed properly, it still amounts to nothing." Design is only one part of the equation. Most entrepreneurs know that designs have to remain fresh and contemporary, but for optimal results, distribution channels, marketing strategy, production capacity, and quality control have to progress at the same pace.
Mrs. Kuo Hsueh-mei of the Guo Jia Zhuang Pickle Shop notes that deciding on the best markets for their product can be a real headache. For instance, selling goods at the duty-free stores in the airport would be tantamount to selling at cost because of the high rent-the only real benefit would be increased brand recognition. At supermarkets, on the other hand, their product would be awash in a sea of diverse competing brands, making it hard for consumers to zero in on Guo Jia Zhuang's distinctive qualities, such as the use of non-genetically modified soybeans and the absence of artificial preservatives.
Luckily for them, sales finally picked up after a few serendipitous encounters. Before Chinese New Year in 2007, a person from the construction business called to discuss buying corporate gifts. The representative indicated that they had been searching for a long time for the right product. Guo Jia Zhuang's green packaging conformed with their environmental ideals, and they ended up purchasing 280 gift packs.
For any company producing handmade goods, production capacity is always a factor. Once their products break through to the greater public, it can be difficult keeping up with the volume of orders, and professional management is necessary to ensure growth while maintaining quality standards.
(left to right) CHAngrila green tea is presented in an ersatz tea basket. The Rare Seed Ranch Milk Nougat package series, ever popular with travelers, features tour maps on the reverse side of the cover. The real thrill is that the boxes emit a hearty "moo!" when opened, produced by a sensor-activated buzzer resonating in the box. Peng earned a patent for this ingenious design. He also won the German iF Communication Design Award for his design for Guo Jia Zhuang Hakka Pickles. He packed nougat candies in a camera-shaped box as a charming allusion to a famous confectioner's shop on Po-ai Street in Taipei, a street lined with camera stores. Hsinchu dried persimmons nest in a package that looks like a flower in bloom. Peng's designs for grass-jelly powder can be traced to his childhood memories in Kuanhsi seeing his grandmother take a steel pail with her on trips to buy grass jelly. Each of these efforts reveals a rich appreciation of Taiwan's past.
Targeting the right consumers
Convincing the younger generation to take over established traditional agricultural businesses can be quite a challenge. When they are willing to continue where their predecessors left off, they must confront the problems unique to running a small-scale enterprise with limited manpower and resources. Most of the time they must content themselves with making sales over the Internet and shipping out orders. Farmers' associations are willing to provide support, but it usually stops at financing company makeovers. It's still up to the individual businesses to find ways to apply and project their new image in the marketplace.
In 2000, Peng submitted two grass jelly design proposals for the Kuanhsi Township Farmer's Association. The first design was an engraving on old-fashioned straw board depicting a child eating grass jelly with obvious gusto. The second submission placed the grass jelly in an elegant blue-and-white Chinese-style porcelain bowl. The pictures he took of this design came out well, and despite not being satisfied with it, he sent it out as foil to the other design, which he considered to be the better of the two.
To his surprise, the association felt the first one overly accentuated the earthiness of the product, and selected the second one instead. Though the shock was evident on his face, he had no choice but to honor the decision.
In 2006 the same association again received support from the Council of Hakka Affairs, and they turned once more to Peng to supply a new image for instant grass jelly powder. Recalling childhood memories of his grandmother carrying a steel pail to buy grass jelly, he combined cups used for meatball soup, printed silver to look like galvanized steel, with a steel wire handle.
The problem is grass jelly is a specialty of the Kuanhsi Township Farmers' Association, and people there will buy it as long as it is sanctioned by the association, regardless of the presentation. However, traditional buyers couldn't care less about elegant packaging, and go straight for whichever offers them the most grass jelly for their buck, leaving the designer to take the blame for lackluster sales.
"A package is like a stageplay." Peng's 2007 "Trip View Bowl" design for Kuanhsi Township in Hsinchu County is the most labor-intensive work he has produced to date. An avid cartographer from childhood, Peng drew an intricate map of his hometown featuring scenic spots, famous old stores, and regional topography on the inside of a porcelain bowl 12 centimeters in diameter. The manufacturing process was a throwback to the old craft of etching: draw, carve, and print. First, he took panoramic photographs of Kuanhsi and its environs. Then, he used Google Earth 3-D micro-mapping technology to produce a model with a sweeping bird's-eye view. He then had to search long and hard to find a ceramics factory he thought could best reproduce the complex layers and dimensionality of the underglazing. He ordered the production of 2000 units, each with its own serial number, to be sold as collector's items. In the future, Peng plans to produce similar products showcasing regions throughout Taiwan.
Aesthetic trash
Peng's latest design is for a product that dates back to 1891-Hsinkang Candy, made by Ching Chang Li Food Enterprise based in Chiayi County's Hsinkang Township. He has been collaborating with the fourth-generation owner's wife Lu Yang Hsiu-mei not only on packaging, but also on the introduction of new flavors like orange, mango, strawberry, and cantaloupe in the hopes of creating uniquely Taiwanese chewy fruit candies.
"Becoming part of a 100-year-old family enterprise is the opportunity of a lifetime, and it is a deep well of inspiration for me," he says.
Today, sustainability is something touted by all businesses. Peng has fond reminisces of the days of taking a steel pail to the produce market, but he knows that those days can never return.
There are a number of ways to go about green packaging, which is one useful way to separate yourself from the competition. In 2000, he designed boxes wrapped in satin imprinted with regal dragon patterns for moon cakes made by high-end restaurant King Join.
The cakes were of the finest quality-reflected in the price of NT$3000 for a set of four-and were selected by the Government Information Office that year as presents for foreign dignitaries. However, the ornate packaging, which cost NT$1000 and included 17 layers of material, came under criticism for its wasteful extravagance. This forced Peng to realize that even the most aesthetic, lasting designs could be doomed to failure when met with consumer disapproval.
He describes it all with humor: "Some day I'll be in heaven receiving judgment, and my crime will be announced-creating too much beautiful trash. But behind me will be a long line of sinners responsible for creating ugly trash."
"A package is like a stageplay." Peng's 2007 "Trip View Bowl" design for Kuanhsi Township in Hsinchu County is the most labor-intensive work he has produced to date. An avid cartographer from childhood, Peng drew an intricate map of his hometown featuring scenic spots, famous old stores, and regional topography on the inside of a porcelain bowl 12 centimeters in diameter. The manufacturing process was a throwback to the old craft of etching: draw, carve, and print. First, he took panoramic photographs of Kuanhsi and its environs. Then, he used Google Earth 3-D micro-mapping technology to produce a model with a sweeping bird's-eye view. He then had to search long and hard to find a ceramics factory he thought could best reproduce the complex layers and dimensionality of the underglazing. He ordered the production of 2000 units, each with its own serial number, to be sold as collector's items. In the future, Peng plans to produce similar products showcasing regions throughout Taiwan.
(left to right) CHAngrila green tea is presented in an ersatz tea basket. The Rare Seed Ranch Milk Nougat package series, ever popular with travelers, features tour maps on the reverse side of the cover. The real thrill is that the boxes emit a hearty "moo!" when opened, produced by a sensor-activated buzzer resonating in the box. Peng earned a patent for this ingenious design. He also won the German iF Communication Design Award for his design for Guo Jia Zhuang Hakka Pickles. He packed nougat candies in a camera-shaped box as a charming allusion to a famous confectioner's shop on Po-ai Street in Taipei, a street lined with camera stores. Hsinchu dried persimmons nest in a package that looks like a flower in bloom. Peng's designs for grass-jelly powder can be traced to his childhood memories in Kuanhsi seeing his grandmother take a steel pail with her on trips to buy grass jelly. Each of these efforts reveals a rich appreciation of Taiwan's past.
Strewn about Peng Hsi-yi's workspace are various product designs from which he hopes to draw inspiration.
