Arami Cocktails
Packaging Design
Since 2010, Arami has been a fixture of the West Town neighborhood in Chicago, serving Bib Gourmand-winning Japanese cuisine from their torii gate-fronted Chicago Avenue location. The ever-popular sake cocktails have been a staple for sushi diners from their inception.
When the pandemic hit in early 2020, owners Ty and Troy Fujimura pivoted their focus to bottling and selling their customer-favorite original cocktails. Based on classics like the martini, whiskey sour, and old-fashioned, all are made with a foundation of sake and packaged in to-go-friendly bottles. Zmmr worked with Arami to combine the heritage elements of their Japanese-Hawaiian family ancestry and traditional sake packaging. Abstract, colorful design details hint at their masterful combination of the old with the new in these tried and true cocktails made fresh with Japanese spirits.
We were able to blend time-honored style with contemporary innovation via the playful vector art–an homage to the brand’s experimental roots.
Using hand-painted Japanese calligraphy created in the traditional brush and ink style, we were able to blend time-honored style with contemporary innovation via the playful vector art–an homage to the brand’s experimental roots, much like how their chefs fuse classical methods of Japanese cuisine like sushi and robata with inventive ingredients and flavor combinations.
The result is a flexible, vibrant system that delivers the restaurant’s deliciously different drinks from the menu to the shelf. They have become mainstays in the newly-formed, carryout style Arami Sake Market and in the delivery bags of their fiercely loyal customers.
Aiga Louisville, 2020
