This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. To mark the occasion, we are publishing a series of reports celebrating the city’s achievements in different aspects over the past four decades.
Apple is one of the most common fruits in our daily lives. But when a Shenzhen design company spices up this ordinary fruit with a “Three apples have changed the world” story and packs them in exquisitely designed boxes, apples can become the new rage at the market, Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.
EvaNewtonJobs, or Xianiuqiao in Chinese, is a Chinese apple brand whose name is inspired by three household names, namely, Eva from the Garden of Eden, Isaac Newton and Steve Jobs.
A recipient of the 2017 Red Dot Design Award and the 2018 iF Design Award, an example of the packaging box by EvaNewtonJobs is now on display in the exhibition hall of the Shenzhen Industrial Museum.
“Shenzhen provides a very good platform for cultural and creative products to enter the international market. A large number of domestic and foreign talent gather here, promoting the rapid development of cultural and creative industries,” said Yi Ping, designer of the packaging box for EvaNewtonJobs.
Yi graduated from Shandong University of Art & Design in 2016 and came south to work for a package design company in Shenzhen.
Renowned for high-end printing, Shenzhen is one of the three printing bases in China. “Shenzhen has a sound industrial chain. The strong market demand here provides a very good living environment for the design industry and designers,” Bi Xuefeng, an academic member of the Shenzhen Graphic Design Association, said.
In 2008, Shenzhen was named as a UNESCO City of Design. The city made clear its strategic development goal of “promoting the transformation of the manufacturing economy to a creative service economy with design.”
The clothing industry was once one of the pillar industries in Shenzhen. Now it is an industry with competitive advantages of the city, which boasts more than 2,500 clothing enterprises. The total sales volume of Shenzhen’s garment industry exceeded 260 billion yuan (US$38 billion) in 2019.
Han Wangxi, director of the Shenzhen Innovation & Creative Design Development Office, said “Shenzhen Design” is market-oriented and showcases a relatively high degree of industrial integration.