Project Statement

The practical work in relation to the essay question focuses on Eastern culture and the importance of cultural awareness within design, through re-branding MDH (Mahashian Di Hatti) Spices masala packaging designs to look more culturally and historically sensitive to avoid the current stereotypical designs that are used. Eastern culture is relevant as one of the chapters within the essay focuses on the comparisons and dissimilarities between Eastern and Western culture and how these opposites are apparent within cultural design. The theoretical work focuses on the importance of as a designer, the need to consider and research into culture when targeting design for the target audience in order to create work that is both culturally sensitive and of high design standard.

MDH Spices is an Eastern (specifically Indian and Pakistani) spice and masala brand. The specific masala flavours that the re-brand designs focus on are Garam Masala, Butter Chicken and Chana Masala, 3 of the most popular masalas that MDH Spices sell. The aim to the new designs was to avoid using the current stereotypical imagery and instead re-brand the packaging to be culturally sensitive through focusing more on the stories and journeys of each flavour/ingredients, the origins, where they were picked from and the specific areas that they come from, giving each flavour a more personal touch which aims to communicate more about the culture that each of them come from.

The current designs of the packaging do not successfully communicate the culture; the imagery is very basic (basically just using a photograph of the dish), irrelevant colours which don't relate to the masalas and the logo and overall typography choices need relating back to the culture and society now as the choices are very outdated. The new designs are successful through visuals which were influenced by gathering relevant cultural research. The imagery used focuses on the plants that the main ingredients in each masala come from, imagery of the map locations that each masala originated from, brief descriptions about the history of each masala and avoids typography that has a typical Eastern aesthetic and instead use fonts that are more neutral and legible as this is more global. This helps to appeal to a wider audience other than people just of eastern culture, the re-brand educates audiences of different cultures which therefore increases sales for the brand.

The overall new aesthetic of the designs is a lot more contemporary, bold and high end which is appropriate in catching the consumers eye in stores where the spices are sold; the current MDH Spices designs are very outdated. This successfully relates to the theoretical discussion about the positive impact that globalisation can have on a brand if they target their designs to a global audience instead of using stereotypical design, the designs not only appeal to a global audience through the new aesthetic but also aim educate people of different cultures about the stories and cultural origins of the flavour.

The additional outcome also includes a booklet on ‘How to Create Culturally Sensitive Design’ the booklet states how designers can create culturally sensitive work through focus on cultural research in 6 of the most important and relevant steps to consider during the design process. These rules touched on understanding your target audience, broad vs narrowed research, understanding brand competition, how to avoid cultural misappropriation and allowing your work to receive specialist feedback. These steps explained in the booklet were applied to the MDH spices re-brand to create a more culturally sensitive, globally marketable and research driven outcome and demonstrates the success of these booklet steps.

The booklet also uses similar colour palettes and design choices to the MDH Spices re-brand in order to create obvious visual links between the two. The steps throughout the booklet are easy to understand for new designers and relevant as every designer will experience creating work for a different culture to their own at some point in their career, so it is important to know how to do this properly. Avoiding cultural misappropriations within our work shows that we have a cultural awareness, take pride in our work and care about our clients.