North Korean culture and society is sometimes regarded as stagnant, but even an examination of something as simple as the packaging of everyday items shows that Pyongyang, once determined to resist modernization, appears to be increasingly adopting foreign influence to market its growing consumer goods industry.

Food items recently seen on supermarket and shop shelves in the DPRK suggest noticeable foreign influences. Food packaging from South Korea, in particular, appears to have inspired North Korean designers.

It’s all a far cry from the 1990s and 2000s, when packaging in the DPRK was mostly bland and functional in design.