Fly By Jing premiumised Sichuan flavour.

Fly By Jing is a lesson in giving a heritage cuisine premium branding. Founded by Jing Gao — a Chengdu-born, ex-Procter & Gamble brand manager who reclaimed her birth name — it launched as a product brand via a record-breaking Kickstarter in 2018 (raising about $120,000, that year’s highest-funded food project). Its flagship is Sichuan Chili Crisp, a premium, all-natural take on the crunchy Chinese condiment.

The name comes from Chengdu’s “fly restaurants” (苍蝇馆子) — hole-in-the-wall eateries so good they draw diners like flies — paired with her reclaimed name, Jing. The brand is proudly, unapologetically Sichuan: bold, vibrant flavours with no dumbing down. A woman- and Asian-owned B Corp, it helped ignite the US premium chili-crisp boom and expanded into Zhong Sauce, Mala Spice Mix, Chengdu Crunch and more.

(Honest notes: the flagship is the Sichuan Chili Crisp, with Zhong Sauce a separate product — not an earlier name for the crisp; Fly By Jing’s defensible claim is “the first premium Chinese chili sauce,” not the first chili crisp (the format is a centuries-old Chinese staple, e.g. Lao Gan Ma); its innovation is premiumisation and branding; and it is independent and founder-led. No official brand hex is published.)

Fly By Jing lives in a red-and-yellow palette. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Fly By Jing’s identity is bold, loud and confident — a Sichuan red, a bright yellow, a deep chili maroon, a magenta accent, and a warm paper. The palette reads like a modern riff on traditional Chinese red-and-gold: a bold red field with bright yellow type, clashing and vibrant on purpose. It signals pride and heat rather than muted good taste. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is a red-and-yellow palette signals proud, premium Chinese flavour. Fly By Jing’s world reads as loud and confident. For designers, it is a reminder that a bold red with bright yellow — a knowing take on Chinese red-and-gold — conveys cultural pride and intensity, matching a brand that refuses to dilute itself. The takeaways: lead with a confident red and yellow (pink or magenta only as an accent); let the colour be as loud as the flavour; and treat any single hex as unofficial — using the deep maroon for small text so the brights stay in the palette.

The wordmark spirit is a bold grotesque — confident and modern.

Fly By Jing’s identity carries a bold, confident, modern spirit — a “FLY BY JING” wordmark whose assured forms match a proud, premium Sichuan brand. A bold grotesque captures the mood: it is strong and contemporary, the register of a maximalist, culturally confident brand rather than a quiet import. Set against a red-and-yellow palette, the bold grotesque feels confident and modern — exactly the proud-to-be-loud personality Fly By Jing carries. It is assertive rather than restrained, mirroring loud, vibrant flavour. (Fly By Jing’s real wordmark is a trademark we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not something we assert.) Because the specific mark is not ours to use, the honest description is “a bold grotesque spirit,” not the Fly By Jing logo. The type behaves like the brand: bold, confident and modern.

Fly By Jing stands for proud, premium Sichuan flavour.

Fly By Jing is a lesson in refusing to dilute a culture to sell it. Instead of softening Sichuan flavour or hiding behind stereotypical “ethnic” packaging, it gave a heritage condiment bold, premium, culturally confident branding — a loud red-and-yellow identity and an unapologetically Sichuan story. That pride is the product’s whole positioning, and it helped create a premium American market for chili crisp. The differentiator is authenticity worn proudly: the brand is as bold as the flavour.

For designers and brand-builders, Fly By Jing offers a clear takeaway: cultural confidence can be a premium advantage. The lessons: present a heritage product with genuine pride rather than dilution; build a bold, ownable identity (red-and-yellow, loud type) that matches the flavour; and tell a specific, real story (Chengdu’s fly restaurants, a reclaimed name). It is also a reminder to stay accurate: the flagship is the Sichuan Chili Crisp, the honest claim is “first premium” (not first-ever), and the identity leads with red and yellow — with the palette here an unofficial interpretation. Fly By Jing wore its culture proudly — proof that cultural confidence can be the difference.

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