LA-based graphic designer Shengjie Wu challenges the idea that golf is a sport for the wealthy with Birdie, a hypothetical branding and packaging project that makes the game feel genuinely approachable for a new generation of players.
Spend a weekend morning at a public golf course and the crowd might surprise you. Shengjie Wu noticed it first-hand: fairways full of players between 18 and 30, a generation quietly claiming a sport still widely assumed to belong to older, wealthier demographics. That gap between perception and reality became the starting point for Birdie, a hypothetical welcome kit designed to meet new golfers where they actually are.
The project is a considered exercise in packaging design, identity and cultural reframing. The kit itself focuses on the essentials a beginner actually needs: golf balls, tees, a glove, a marker and a divot repair tool. Wu’s research found no equivalent product on the market, no thoughtfully designed entry point for players who are curious about the game but not yet ready to invest in the full apparatus of the sport. Birdie is the answer to that gap, built around affordable products and a clean, modern visual identity that signals accessibility without sacrificing quality of craft.
That craft is visible in the material choices. The rigid box is wrapped in NEENAH Classic Crest paper, smooth and solar white, with a spot UV golf texture that gives the surface a tactile quality well beyond what you might expect from a starter kit. E-flute corrugated cartons with a die-cut interior handle the structural work inside. The packaging does what good packaging should: it makes the thing inside feel worth having before you have even opened it.
“The design is about more than a welcome kit,” Wu explains. “It’s an invitation, a way of saying the game belongs to you too.”
Wu’s background as a designer and collector shapes the attention to detail throughout. From childhood he built what he describes as a visual library from found objects, Hot Wheels cars, clothing tags, travel magnets, each one holding its own story. That accumulative sensibility and the curiosity behind it informs work that treats every graphic and material decision as an opportunity to say something considered.
Shengjie Wu is a graphic designer whose practice is rooted in bridging gaps through typography, identity and thoughtful visual communication.
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Birdie, hypothetical branding and packaging project, 2024. Rigid box wrap with NEENAH Classic Crest Text Paper (70lb / Solar White / Smooth), spot UV golf texture, E-Flute corrugated cartons with die-cut interior. Photography: Shengjie Wu.
