This summer I was commissioned by a San Francisco food company “Taiwan Treat” to illustrate their new food packaging. Taiwan Treat, just to give you a little information, is a subscription based food service. You pay a monthly fee and a box of food arrives, quite cool.

My client sells delicious Taiwanese snacks, tea and treats, so initial ideas were based upon and inspired by Taiwanese culture and attractions. So I illustrated the front of the box as well the inside of the box.

So for the front of the box, I illustrated Taiwan’s night markets, the 1010 building, The Red house theatre, Presidential office, tea culture, mountain, pearl milk tea / bubble tea, hot springs…etc. The whole image is colourful but not too over the top. It also stands out and is full of Taiwanese culture. You may not know what’s inside the box but you will at least know that it’s related to Taiwan.

For the inside-the-box illustration, my client wanted me to illustrate some fun and cute characters. I decided to depict Native Taiwanese (also know as the indigenous peoples of Taiwan) children wearing their traditional costumes while playing and feeding a Formosan black bear with some Taiwanese snacks. I’m sure I don’t need to mention don’t try feeding a bear but if you see one, don’t, run!

I decided to use native Taiwanese children as part of the main characters as I’ve always been fascinated by the native tribe culture. There’s a “Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park” in Pingtung which I have visited a couple times and it’s extremely fascinating. Also when I was around 8 or 9 years old I wen to a Native Taiwanese culture camp and just loved their culture and stories. So I decided to create my characters based on the biggest tribe called “Amis” and to illustrate those kids wearing Amis’s costumes and hair pieces.

I also decided to illustrate a Formosan black bear because bears are one of my favourite animals to illustrate and can look very cute. Formosan black bears were voted the most representative wildlife of Taiwan in 2001 and even now you can still see a lot of Taiwan souvenir’s and materials that use Formosan black bears as the main character.

Over the last six months I’ve been commissioned with a lot of food packaging illustrations and designs and I really love this kind of project. So if you need an illustrator to illustrate and design your food packaging or you need someone to draw something for you, I’d love to hear from you.