I have been transferred to Japan, my home country, in April this year after working 10 years as an expat in the United States.

Ten years of absence in Japan makes me recognize that this country provides its citizens with comfortable living environments filled with Japanese languages. Everywhere we go, we can see meticulous descriptions such as explanations, warnings and slogans. Furthermore, the surge in inbound tourists has accelerated multilingual communications, bringing about a glut of information presented by characters, especially in big cities. While in the U.S., people are provided relatively less information in urban areas. In packaging design, more focus is put on colors than characters to make an impact on consumers. In some social ranks, people use languages other than English in their family conversations, so text information alone is not enough to make products appear attractive. Visual impacts are the key for consumers to smoothly choose one specific product from among a variety of goods displayed on the large shelf. For example, Oreo cookies stand with its blue package.

During my assignment in the U.S., I played a role of persuading our Japanese clients how important it is for them to shift their character-based thinking to color-based one. Now that I am back in Japan, where a flood of textual information inundates our daily lives, I am keenly aware of the importance of colors as an intuitive and effective means of communication.

Taro Kaneko
Senior Operating Officer