Packaging design and illustrations for YamiYami food delivery — A case with scrumptious sushi inside! The idea is based on characters of Japanese and Slavic folklore.

I developed the idea and concept of the whole design, inspired by Slavic and Japanese folklore. I have always been fascinated by folk tales and folkloric characters of different cultures. The initial idea came to me after I read about 百鬼夜行, "Night Parade of One Hundred Demons". Once a year Japanese Yōkai (妖怪) gather together in a procession and march through the streets of Japanese towns, scaring citizens and having a lot of fun. I decided that after such parade they might as well have a nice dinner around the fire.

You can find some iconic characters of Japanese folklore on this illustration, such as Oni, Umibōzu, Nekomata, Inugami, Rokurokubi, Kitzune, Tengu and many other!

I also thought, why couldn't our Slavic folklore characters do the same? Food is part of our culture. It makes us unique and also connects us. During my research process I found out a lot of parallels between Japanese Yōkai and Slavic folk characters. Sometimes those parallels are pretty obvious, and sometimes they are just based on character's appearance. See how many characters can you recognise!

On this illustrations are characters that are familiar to every slavic presence from his early childhood, such as Chert, Rusalka, Zmey Gorynich, Leshiy, Baba-Yaga, Vodyanoy, Domovoy and other!

Here are some references that I used. With Slavic characters I was inspired by loubok, Illustrations and drawings by Ivan Bilibin and other illustrations, depicting folk characters.

With Japanese Yōkai I was inspired by Japanese woodblock prints and animated works by studio Ghibli.

Here are the initial sketches

You can see those parallels between characters on the bottom side of the case

Illustration with Japanese characters is on the outside, while slavic characters are hidden inside the case. After one opens it and enjoys a meal, he can play with those characters, discovering parallels between them

いただきます!

Thank you! 

You can find more of my works here: