Team Island Hideaway

Beauty itself has already become the undoing of many places, and being an Instagram hotspot is often the beginning of the end. Taiwan therefore strictly protects many natural environments. The student project “Island Hideaway” aims to give people a feeling for the protected flora and fauna through packaging and scents, and to create real experiences without having to be there in person.

Interview with Team Island Hideaway

Red Dot: What inspired you to start this project?
Team Island Hideaway: Our team of five loves nature very much and does not want our environment to be destroyed. For “Island Hideaway”, we have selected six protected places that are difficult to reach or can only be reached with special authorisation. We hope that we can bring people closer to these natural areas in a different way, so that they can discover them through the packaging and their sense of sight and smell, and thus develop a better understanding of ecosystems and nature conservation.

The packaging is very elaborately produced. What materials and tools did you use?
We used laser cutting and engraving and did a lot of the manufacturing by hand. The packaging follows three themes: purity, environment and respect. To symbolise the purity aspect, we selected a paper with a high cotton content, also because it was a good carrier material for the fragrances. However, we had to choose carefully to avoid burns and brownish cut edges during laser cutting.

What do the overlapping characters on the boxes mean?
The text on the six boxes represents the names of the nature reserves in calligraphy. For example, we gave Seipa National Park the name 日幕 (RIMU), which means day veil. This is because this place is located at a high altitude and is surrounded by clouds and mist all year round, but you can still see the sunrise in all its splendour.

The project also includes brochures with an elaborate typographical design …
The calligraphy was realised in the style of ink drawings, and the brochures contain information about the animals, flowers and plants of the places, as well as an introduction to the ecology and maps with hiking trails.

How has the project enriched you?
We have gained a deep understanding of Taiwan’s ecological diversity. Protecting the environment is so important because we humans have to live on this land. We should pay more attention to our land, and this is another thing that “Island Hideaway” wants to convey.