Inclusive Design for the 2023 Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year celebrations are significant for Sino cultures, with many shared rituals to ring in the new year and prepare for the coming of spring — like decorating with red and gold, lighting fireworks to ward off evil spirits, gifting red envelopes with “lucky money,” and deep cleaning their homes to rid their lives of lousy luck.

You might also be familiar with the 12-animal “Chinese Zodiac” associated with the Lunar New Year, where each year marks the transition from one animal to the next. In 2023, some will celebrate The Year of the Rabbit. But our friends in Vietnamese communities will celebrate this coming Lunar New Year with a different furry friend. For them, 2023 (and every 12 years) is The Year of the Cat.

This is my creative journey to uncover why this is the case.
I am a proud supporter of a local coffee shop in San Jose, California, called Academic Coffee. Hands down, it offers my hometown’s best coffee brew, freshly roasted beans, and baked goods.

After years of obsessively visiting their lovely cafe, I’ve gotten close to Academic Coffee’s Vietnamese-American proprietor, Frank Nguyen. And in the past two years, I’ve donated some of my design time to help Frank modernize his brand with illustration, identity, and packaging design. Frank is a former Marketing professional with a palette for world-class aesthetics and coffee, so it’s always been a joy to collaborate with him. Also notable: Frank and his team have been sustainability champions since Academic Coffee’s 2017 inception, ensuring all products are compostable, reusable, or recyclable. All great reasons to befriend this local entrepreneur.

So with some downtime on my hands during the holiday break, I reached out to Frank with an idea to design “Year of the Rabbit” stickers and gift card envelopes for his cafe’s Lunar New Year celebration. Something in the bubbly and playful style we’ve used on Academic’s canned beverage labels.

He wrote back from Vietnam, where he happened to be visiting with family for the holidays. He was kind and quick to educate me on my design misstep. Frank wrote:

In my Vietnamese culture, every 12 years we celebrate with a Cat zodiac, not the Rabbit. And since San Jose has a predominantly Vietnamese Asian community, most celebrations around us will include the Cat zodiac.

In contrast, up the peninsula, folks in San Francisco will celebrate Year of the Rabbit, because other Sino cultures more commonly have a rabbit in their mythology.

So, with a nudge, I was happy to start working on a new Cat zodiac illustration for Academic Coffee’s Lunar New Year celebration.

Learning about the difference was interesting, but I couldn’t help wondering why Vietnamese Asian cultures use the Cat. I’ll share some of the theories, but first, here’s some basic info on the holiday so that we’re all on the same page.