Celebrating culture through food and flavours: Inspiring a CapU student’s award-winning brand design
It has been an illustrious year for CapU IDEA School of Design student Celina Zhong. The fourth year Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication student has received a long list of awards for her design project titled Soya Fusion, most notably the 2023 DesCan Jim Rimmer Scholarship and 2023 RGD Q30 Design Award for Brand Design.
Originating as a menu and packaging design for a class project, Soya Fusion blossomed beyond branding to become a gateway to introduce people to explore Chinese culture through food and flavours.
“I wanted to design an interactive menu with an immigration concept, intertwining food and culture,” says Zhong about her menu design. “As one opens the meu, they will find passport-inspired layouts, pages that offer translations and a circular cover inspired by the classic Lazy Susan.”
Soya Fusion menu design
With the fusion sauce packaging design, the goal was to bridge familiarity and in turn, make multicultural cooking less daunting.
“Using Chinese zodiac characters and personifying them with flavour profiles and food pairing compatibilities is a fresh way to establish a connection with familiarity, making the exploration of diverse cuisines less intimidating,” said Zhong.
Soya Fusion design packaging
Zhong credits CapU faculty member Dominque Walker for her guidance in helping this project prosper. Walker is quick to recognize Zhong’s work ethic.
“Celina is a student who always comes to class prepared and ready to work. She never stops when work is good, she keeps pushing until it is excellent,” said Walker. “What impresses me most is the thought and ideation she puts into her projects.”
Zhong will be graduating in April and looks forward to exploring her artistic journey. Her time in the IDEA School of Design has instilled a drive for perfection and eagerness to learn and grow.
“I hope to explore art direction at an agency where I can work on brand identity and advertising projects with kind and clever people,” said Zhong. “I anticipate that real-world experiences in the industry will catalyze even more growth. I will be challenged, I will question myself and I will come out of my experiences knowing myself and my work better.”
Learn more about Soya Fusion's story on Celina Zhong's website
Submitted by: Communications