Packaging

Product Design

A Soft Drink for Grown-Ups

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Two guys from the London brand/design consultancy Wonderland WPA walk into a classy bar and ask for a soft drink that is not the kind you can get out of a vending machine or in the refrigerated section of a truck stop.

That may seem like the set-up for a joke, but it is how Story beverages came to be invented. Finding the choice of alcoholic drinks in fine restaurants and bars limitless, but the availability of upscale nonalcoholic ones few and far between, Wonderland WPA saw a market niche begging to be filled. They defined a new category of soft drinks that would be offered exclusively in bars, restaurants and hotels, and created a brand identity that looked stylish and grown-up. The simple, elegant packaging enhanced the perception of being sophisticated and worthy of drinking on a special night out. Launched in August 2011, Story will initially be sold only in the UK, with plans to introduce it into export markets in 2012.

Packaging

Alfaro Packaging – Making Baroque Look Modern

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Alfaro is a tiny town in the renowned wine-producing La Rioja province in northern Spain. The region has been making wine since the days of the Phoenicians, with the earliest record of grape-growing dating to 873. This year to celebrate La Fiesta Barroca, Palacios Remondo created two commemorative wine collections that pay tribute to Alfaro, home to its winery. Palacios Remondo commissioned Estudio Dorian to design the packaging around a Baroque theme. The collection includes six labels for each wine, with the extravagantly Baroque ornamentation contained in the simple letterforms. The result is an understated elegance, clean and contemporary yet suggestive of a rich heritage.

Packaging

How Do You Package a Fruit-Flavored Drink?

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Smirnoff Fruit

JWT Brazil let the distinguishing flavors of Caipiroska, the Brazilian drink that is popular worldwide, lead it to the solution for the packaging of Smirnoff’s new beverage. It wrapped each bottle with the texture of the fruit flavor (lime, passion fruit and strawberry) inside and used a diagonal perforation to let customers peel away the outer “skin”. For a select mailing list, JWT even sent packaged Smirnoff Caipiroska sets in wooden produce crates.

The Smirnoff packaging is in the vanguard of integrating textures into print. Today more designers are utilizing the amazing capabilities of dimensional printing and Adobe software to create raster-textured images. No longer do viewers have to imagine the tactile quality of an object, they can actually feel it by running their fingers across a printed sheet. It’s not just movies that are embracing 3-D; the print medium is too.

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Sustainability

Coke Wants Its Racks Back

By Delphine Hirasuna |


Coca-Cola has gotten very good at reclaiming the containers that hold its beverages. In 2010, it recovered 400 million pounds of cans and bottles in the U.S. alone. Much of this has been converted into everything from chairs and clothes to jewelry. But building a sustainable planet demands more than reclaiming product packaging, so Coke has come out with the industry’s first 100% recyclable merchandise display racks for use in grocery and convenience stores. Made from corrugated cardboard and soon from recycled PET plastic too, the merchandise racks are the first step toward a comprehensive closed-loop retail equipment program. Coke’s “Give It Back” rack is meant to be returned or recycled to keep it from being tossed into a landfill. The recyclable rack is being tested in select U.S. markets now and should be widely available before yearend.

Packaging

Espolon Tequila Packaging
Wraps Itself in Mexican Legends

By Delphine Hirasuna |

How do you convince consumers that your tequila is authentically Mexican and not an Americanized version of what the South of the Border drink is all about? Skip the piñatas, the sombreros and all the hokey souvenir-type imagery for starters.

For the reintroduction of its product in the United States after an absence of several years, Espolon Tequila wrapped its brand in the rich traditions, history, festivities and artistic style of the Mexican culture. Spearheaded by Landor, the rebranding program was inspired by the engravings of renowned 19th century artist Jose Guadalupe Posada, whose skeleton people are best associated with the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations. Finely drawn illustrations by Steven Noble pay homage to Posada’s style and incorporate iconography reflecting the legends and lore of Mexico.

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