Chinese New Years, the greatest annual celebration for Chinese citizens!

Chinese New Years is a very popular time for the Chinese citizens and a festival where maximum effort is put in to producing a beautiful visual celebration! CNY is also known as Spring Festival, the literal translation of the modern Chinese name.

A major iconic theme of Chinese New Year is the vivid use of red, a very patriotic colour to Chinese citizens. It can be noticed in all facets of decoration. Windows and doors will be decorated with red color paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of good fortune, happiness, wealth, and longevity. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes. These paper envelopes are know as hongbao (no plurals in Chinese!).

On most hongbao you can expect to see intricate Chinese designs and symbols representing this Chinese New Year's animal (the horse) as a symbols of wealth and good health. The red color of the envelope symbolizes luck and is supposed to ward off evil spirits. Below is an example of hongbao designs that can be seen:

This design uses negative space to draw attention to the intricate central design. The central design is pure gold, creating a fantastic contrast of red and gold (typically seen on the chinese flag). The central alignment and symmetrical appearance is also a nice touch as it helps promote the simplistic design.

This design is quite different to most common hongbao as it is broken into 3 sections and has a split colour background. Continuing to use the themed colours red and gold, a main logo has been placed on the split line, drawing attention to that part of the design. This is a good way for company branding to be identified easier and also grabs the viewers attention.

This design is also particularly unusual as it uses a reverse color scheme that would usually be seen on a hongbao. A gold background has been used with placement of a red logo. Although different, the colors complement very well and the red center logo can be viewed very clearly. The logo is circular, containing simple yet elegant floral and bird imagery.

Ashongbao are known very well world wide and can be identified with ease, it is a great way for companies to further promote themselves through logo placement, brand identity and customer recognition.