Design Bridge

Over the past few weeks, all around the world, people have been celebrating Chinese New Year – the Year of the Rat.  And to mark the celebration of the Lunar New Year, our Singapore team crafted a beautiful set of 紅包 (pronounced as “hongbao” or known as “red packets” in English) as a gift for our clients in Asia.

Traditionally, money is put inside a red envelope and given as token of good wishes during auspicious occasions such as the Lunar New Year and at weddings. In recent years, the colours and designs for 紅包 have evolved to become contemporary, and so this year we came up with a design for ours to transform it into a special memento for our clients (as well as everyone in the Singapore Studio), adding to their celebrations this festive season.

春节 (pronounced as “chun jie”) is usually referred to as the Spring Festival, which celebrates the awakening of Spring. Keeping that in mind, we wanted our red packets to signify the arrival of the Spring season, so we chose peonies in full bloom to represent prosperity and love in Chinese culture.

10 beautifully illustrated, reversible packets are placed together in a frosted envelope with the Chinese words “新年快乐”, pronounced as “xin nian kuai le” and meaning “Happy New Year”. Upon opening each red packet, the recipient is welcomed with an abundance of peonies blossoming alongside our bespoke couplet of well wishes:

花开富贵 – where flowers bloom, prosperity follows
金玉满堂 – may gold and jade (fortune) fill your home

The vibrant colours of the flower petals instils a breath of fresh air as the year begins on a new chapter, while champagne and teal are used as the base to represent gold and jade, alluding to incoming fortunes in the New Year.

We’d like to wish all of our clients, colleagues, friends and followers all around the world a Happy Lunar New Year. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Special thanks to Cerlyn who was part of the team and has shared the story and photos, plus Amy C, Christie and Dea who also worked on creating these beautiful gifts.