Ah that’s better, a shelf full of products I can’t read and don’t recognise. There’s something deeply symbolic about Chinese characters (that’s what they call a truism!), but especially when hanging vertically. I asked a friend of mine for further explanation and learned that this is the traditional way of writing, though the horizontal option is slowly creeping in as China ‘westernises’. Therefore the typography is simply aligning itself with traditional values and communicating that the herbs and spices in these Cantonese soup packs are ‘traditional’ high quality.
Since I have asked I can report that the yellow banner reads:”Chinese herbal ingredients including wolfbury, dried codonopsis pilosula roots, etc for making Chinese chicken soup”. Yes I’d also love to know which character says ‘codonopsis pilosula’…
Clearly ‘appetising’ to the target consumer here has a different twist (and a few tentacles, but that’s just the ginseng) compared to my interpretation of the word. However the role of packaging (temptation, added value and storytelling) remains utterly clear.