Experience design:

“Any self-respecting Japanese woman will tell you that it is an affront to her sensibilities to consume sweets from anything other than “kawaii” (cute) packages. To the Japanese aesthetic, a sweet must first be tasted visually. The design of the box or container it comes in is just as important as that first bite; the experience of consumption begins first of all with the gentle prying open of an attractive package.”

and:

“The Japanese are so design-conscious they’ve become extremely picky. We can pick up the mood of the consumers and interpret it onto package designs, but that doesn’t mean consumers will be seduced into buying them. They need an extra, invisible something attached to the design.” Yoko Morinaga, a product stylist, says that “something” is authenticity: “The young female consumer is a lot more romantic than designers and manufacturers think. They hanker for the genuine. Not re-enactments, but the real thing. The most popular designs are those that have remained unchanged through the years, from smaller companies that refused to bow to the times and stuck to their design policies.”

Kawaii: a companion-concept to Oblaat?

» IHT: Thinking outside the cookie box