“The Mulong” weaves together the Chinese Year of the Dragon’s legacy with a sensorial, intimate whiskey-tasting experience, housed in a beautifully crafted box that pays homage to mythology, tradition, and refined artistry. Below, Tiago Russo—lead designer at Craft Design—offers insight into how this unique creation honors cultural heritage and elevates whiskey enjoyment to a new level.
Project Overview
- Winning Project Title: The Mulong
- Winning Category: Beverage and Food
- Firm Location: Oeiras, Portugal
- Company: Craft Design
- Lead Designer: Tiago Russo
- Design Team: Tiago Russo & Katia Martins
- Client: The Craft Irish Whiskey Co.
The Mulong brings together the Chinese Year of The Dragon values and immersion into the perfect merging of sensorial, intimate whiskey tasting. Hidden within a box that celebrates tradition and mythology, this creation invites users on a journey of hidden treasures and refined craftsmanship. Opening The Mulong experience box reveals the essence of the Wood Dragon, elevating the user’s encounter with a memorable whiskey inside a luxurious mahogany “temple.”
Interview with Tiago Russo
1. Can you share how you got started in design? How has your work grown and evolved over time?
Tiago Russo: My passion for design has been in my core since very early. As far as I can remember, there has always been a designer side of me in constant development: creating new things, creating products, buildings or vehicles from nothing. As pretty much any designer around, I started by sketching. I drew items I saw, products, vehicles, almost anything, until I inherently started the process of drawing something new. From there, it was an obvious route to study Design, which led me to my Master’s degree in Product Design, and after that my career has been, by pure chance, more focused on high-end technical products and several spirits and luxury goods brands over the last 15 years, which has evolved from a junior freelancer in Portugal, to lead designer roles in various markets across the UK, culminating in the work developed as CDO for Craft Irish Whiskey and now the director and founder of our own design studio, Craft Design.
2. What was the brief or challenge behind your winning project? What primary goals did you have when starting this project?
Tiago Russo: As a new luxury whiskey product to enter the Chinese market, The Mulong is the ultimate journey in blending an homage to Chinese culture and the values and immersion that merge together into the perfect, sensorial intimate, whiskey tasting experience.
Our ultimate goal is to bring the user a design that truly enhances and elevates the whiskey tasting experience through a cultural tribute. To open The Mulong experience box is to discover an entire soulful experience of capturing the elements of the cultural icon that is the dragon and unleashing it into the ultimate search of hidden treasures and exquisite spirit that elevates and highlights the users’ journey of a memorable, momentous experience.
3. What inspired your project? How did you transform your ideas into the final design, whether it was a product or a visual concept?
Tiago Russo: The vision behind The Mulong is to provide the most beautiful testimonial of Chinese culture and intemporal richness. An object of desire, but also of great inspiration: a detailed vessel and packaging that brings a powerful meaning to the user and collector of this epic journey of whiskey-making and design statements.
Idealised and studied for over a year, The Mulong was a discovery of traditional Chinese elements that could be integrated and crafted into the utmost contemporary design. Its core development has been directly related to the research towards the immersion and homage into all the meaningful assets of Chinese culture, in a respectful tribute that creates a parallelism into the dedication and craftsmanship poured into the creation of such a rare and unique whiskey inside.
To achieve such vision, all the cultural values are directly linked to the mythology and mysticism of not just directly but through the materials, shades or visual assets that compose this luxurious product. The iconography, the symbolism, the meaning, the proverbs, and ultimately, the core values of the Wood Dragon, all present in The Mulong are the core basis to all the R&D and design process of this uniquely crafted experience: attention to detail is present on every single element of this intricate design.
4. Did you encounter any challenges during your project? How did you overcome them while ensuring your design remained both clear and practical?
Tiago Russo: To pay a tribute – the ultimate homage – an incredible amount of dedication and immersion into Chinese culture, values and mythology is mandatory from the very first second of the design process.
The Mulong aims to bring an elevation of the entire perception of cultural heritage associated with whiskey and a sensorial experience that truly brings an intimate, perfected moment to the users that have the opportunity to unleash the good fortune and powers of The Mulong, and the process to bridge all those concepts and constraints was the main challenge of this entire project.
Only by deeply immersing onto market research, cultural analysis and a great understanding of such particular markets and what makes it a successful product in a whiskey demographic so far from our usual Irish/Scotch whisk(e)y products we could overcome all of the unknown and uncharted paths for this type of product, and accurately design a product that is perfected for the Chinese luxury market.
5. How do you stay updated with new design trends and technologies, such as AI? In what ways have these tools influenced your work?
Tiago Russo: Constant research is our key to success. We never settle for what we know, nor what is trendy. Our motto is to research every possible asset and reference even before actively starting a project. It’s all about knowledge, it’s all about the research. You have to know everything there is in order to design something that truly doesn’t exist yet.
We will never start a sketch or debate an idea before the full process of researching is truly fulfilled. Usually, for successfully designing products and premium/luxury goods, the research and development stages tend to focus away from AI considerations or current trends, and more on technologies or techniques that can bring a sense of uniqueness that can elevate not just the product, but the whole sensorial experience around our creations. Whilst assets such as AI or trend reports are great initial references or research tools, the fact is that great design is timeless and should always bear a strong, personal meaning to the user. These factors become even more relevant in the luxury spirits market, as we are not designing FMCG’s, but items that will endure the test of time and sometimes carry on existing and being used for generations.
6. How do you balance client or market demands with your own creative style? What strategies help you meet both aspects effectively?
Tiago Russo: The number 1 role of any designer is to understand the client and their brand before anything else. Consequently, we will understand their positioning, targets, clients and goals, and with that in mind, we will ultimately apply that knowledge and know-how to the end product, ensuring that it becomes the language of the brand and desired by the target audience. After working on spirits and drinks or luxury markets for several years straight, successful products also come with great reputation and naturally, with a bigger dosage of creative freedom across any project. Nowadays, and after becoming one of the most awarded design studios in existence, brands come to us trusting more, depositing their needs onto us and knowing that we will not stop until we develop an outstanding solution to their brief and market.
7. Reflecting on your winning project, what lessons did you learn? How will these insights shape your future work?
Tiago Russo: The Mulong design development was actually the very first time we had to dive so assertively onto Chinese culture, mythology, and heritage. After several months of technical development and social data in addition to all the market research, we can confidently say that all we learnt and studied to develop The Mulong design will certainly be thoroughly used in any new products that we have to create for a similar market, or any range expansions or variants in the current developed project.
8. What does winning the Design MasterPrize mean to you both personally and professionally? How does this achievement inspire your upcoming projects?
Tiago Russo: To us, myself and everyone at the studio, it’s of the utmost importance to win this type of awards, as often as possible, as it’s the recognition of renowned awards and jury members towards our creations, that fills us with pride and the will to continue, to carry on and keep designing, keep evolving, keep creating incredible, differentiating products, every single time.
By having our products understood and evaluated by various major award bodies worldwide, we can also have further insights on the objective taste, cultural influence or mere points of interest in a design to each and every single market, which allows us to continue this never-ending process of perfectionism and attention to detail.
ConclusioN
By deeply immersing in Chinese mythology and cultural values, The Mulong stands out as an elevated whiskey-tasting experience that merges respectful homage with innovative design. This careful integration of cultural insight, brand identity, and technical excellence exemplifies how thoughtfully tailored research and creativity can yield a truly distinctive luxury product.
