TheDieline.com: Package Design

Rousse Rose Wine

Jordan Jelev is a talented designer from Bulgaria. He specializes in wine label design, especially utilizing hand lettering. The above wine, Rousse Rose, deviates from his usually more classical designs, but is very intriguing in its design and print execution.

Jordan started by designing a custom typeface for the Rousse Rose brand. Each letter consists of dots in two different sizes. Each dot is printed with an overprint of raised ink - a process called thermography. The overprint is a transparent varnish that when heated, causes the ink to 'puff up', giving the surface a textured finish. To add yet further dimension, the design was printed on metallized (silver foil) paper, with the larger dots 'dropped out' of the black, allowing just a small glimmer of reflective silver showing through them.

The capsule on the neck of the bottle was designed to match, with silver foil stamp over matte black.

I think this is a great example of combining good design sense with speciality printing technique. The subtle use of materials, graphic elements and special coatings give this wine a unique presence to make it stand apart from other wines in its category.

One Great Name is Worth 100,000 Words

Your name is the brand asset that travels social spheres, appears in conversation, shows up on a package, signage and will likely be uttered from the lips of your CEO. How important is your name? Find something else this central to your brand strategy. Find something else that permeates everything you do. A name is so valuable, yet anyone can identify a word/phrase and register it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Seems simple, doesn’t it?

If you’ve tried to name yourself, you know the pain of discovering your “brilliant” name is already registered. Then, you start compromising with names that are not memorable or relevant to the brand strategy you’ve defined because you’re getting desperate. After way too many hours and too much stress for what seems like such a simple task, you identify a name. Just before you sign the USPTO office paper work, you wonder: are there professionals who do this for a living? Heck, yes!


If you think naming is merely a process that starts with brainstorming words and ends with picking one and asking for legal clearance, you’ve not had a real naming experience. While pointing out all the pitfalls of doing it yourself would encompass many blog posts, we’ll start with the basics. Naming professionals use criteria to filter through the debris until they find the right name.

Here are the four ironclad criteria that naming professionals follow:

Top 15 Fonts for Packaging Design

by Yael Miller

Over the last several years I've been using many different fonts when designing brand identities and packaging. I like to think of fonts as having their own personality - just like people. Fonts can be brash, silly, elegant, refined, cool, delicate, straightforward, austere, lush or honest. Good use of typography goes a long way, and your choice of fonts will have a significant impact on getting the product/brand's message across appropriately. I've thought about what fonts I've used more than once and why I like them. Out of the countless fonts I've used, here are 15 of my favorites (in no particular order). Enjoy!

Foundry: Positype • Buy

Kari is a great-looking, confident display font that works well in packaging. It stands out and is easy to read, yet has the warmth and vitality of a brush script.

Foundry: Linotype • Buy

Didot is a classic-looking font that's bold enough to stand on its own. The thick-and-thins don't seem to take away from its readability. I like to use this font for gourmet packaging. It's also more distinctive than New Baskerville or Times New Roman, yet has a similar sensibility.

Creative Process: Azul Reál

 


Adam Larson of Adam&Co. let us in on his creative process as he designed new packaging for JRK International's Azul Reál Cachaça. At top is the leading design. Following are the rest of the concepts. The copy for the packaging is as follows:

Nestled deep in the heart of Brazil, between the majestic rainforest to the north and rolling hills of the South, lies the birthplace of Azul Reál – the world’s finest cachaça.  Our distillery is located on a lake in the famous Minas Gerais region, known for producing the highest quality cachaça due to its optimal climate and soil.  These ideal conditions, combined with Azul Reál’s artisanal production method perfected over the past 400 years, coalesce to create the most exquisite drink imaginable. 

We start by cultivating only the freshest natural sugarcane, hand harvested at the peak of the season to ensure maximum sweetness.  This precious sugar cane is fermented the same day it is selected and then undergoes the unique Azul Reál distillation process.  We handcraft our cachaça in small batches using the time-honored “alambique method”, which utilizes traditional copper pot stills.  We then extract only the best portion of the cachaça, known as the heart, which is sent for a further multi-filtration process creating the signature smooth taste.  Finally, the cachaça that remains after this strict process is left to age in a combination of the best traditional American Oak and exotic Brazilian Amendoim casks for up to one year.  And alas, Azul Reál, the world’s finest cachaça, is born.

See the rest after the jump. Drop us a comment and let us know your favorite.

Creative Process: Purista Premium Cocktail Mixer

 

We recently featured Established's work as a Studio Spotlight. They were kind enough to send in one of their most recent projects, re-branding and new package design for Purista, a premium cocktail mixer based off the brand positioning "The Art of The Cocktail."

The image seen here is the final design. Check out three other concepts after the jump!

Creative Process: Cafelicious

We always love to see the finished product, but as designers ourselves, we love seeing the creative process that lead to the final design. Natalie Wedeking of Wedeking / Laun has shared their latest project with us, and some of the designs that lead to the final design.

"I recently named and designed 3 lines of coffee packaging for Javabica, a coffee roaster and processor based in Singapore. The products are on-shelf in Southeast Asia and we are now working on point of purchase displays and advertising/promotional items for the brand. The products may be headed for a US launch in the next year.

Cafelicious is an instant coffee drink packaged in bags of 10 single-serve sachets. The client wanted a young modern feel which takes cues from Japanese packaging, so I drew stylized coffee illustrations combined with a crisp white background. The graphic stripes became the signature for the brand."

See some of the creative process after the jump.