`Olive Oil Gift Pack Gets Dieline Nod - Olive Oil Times

Olive Oil Gift Pack Gets Dieline Nod

By Luciana Squadrilli
Aug. 26, 2013 10:47 UTC

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The Moscone Center in San Francisco hosted The Dieline Package Design Conference held by the epony­mous web­site and Inwork, a pack­ag­ing and pro­to­typ­ing con­sul­tancy, on occa­sion of the lat­est HOW Design Live” event.

The Dieline Package Design Awards are an annual world­wide con­test ded­i­cated to brand pack­ag­ing. For the 2013 edi­tion, the com­pe­ti­tion received over 1,100 entries from 61 coun­tries around the world. The con­test is chaired by Debbie Millman, who along with her team at Sterling Brands, also judges the New York International Olive Oil Competition Design Awards.

The Dieline com­pe­ti­tion had thir­teen cat­e­gories, many of them ded­i­cated to food. Judging cri­te­ria were based on the qual­ity of cre­ativ­ity, mar­ketabil­ity and inno­va­tion. Besides the stan­dard awards, the high­est scor­ing project received a Best of Show” award, and could present a case study at the con­fer­ence. Andrew Gibbs, Founder of The Dieline, also hand­picked an Editor’s Choice” award, and this year a new Sustainable Packaging Award was cre­ated.

The Dairy, Spices, Oils, Sauces, & Condiments” cat­e­gory fea­tured three extra vir­gin olive oils. My Olive Tree, from Greece, took third place, while A Couple Drops (Greece, again) and the Italian Madonna Dell’Olivo Special Edition 2013 pack received a Merit award.

Madonna Dell’Olivo is an award-win­ning oil farm led by the geol­o­gist Antonino Mennella, who par­tic­u­larly ded­i­cates his work at the oil-mill to enhance and value fea­tures of the dif­fer­ent olive vari­eties.

Madonna dell’Olivo is located in the Southern Italian region of Campania, near an ancient Sanctuary in the very heart of the beau­ti­ful Cilento area which is much appre­ci­ated both for its wel­com­ing sea­side and for its coun­try­side rich of his­tory and fer­tile lands. The Sanctuary takes its name by the mirac­u­lous sight of the Madonna over an olive tree by some young local shep­herds in the 16th cen­tury.

From the 200 olive trees around the fam­i­ly’s ancient man­sion, which he saved from dis­re­pair, Mennella pro­duces extra vir­gin olive oils from depit­ted olives, such as the RaRo – a won­der­ful and com­plex 50/50 blend of Ravece and Rotondella local vari­eties, with its charm­ing aroma of freshly cut grass, tomato skin and aro­matic herbs. There is also the mono­va­ri­etal Itrans, made of Itrana olives, with a del­i­cate flo­ral aroma bring­ing more ele­gance to its rich char­ac­ter, and Carpellese, made of this less-known yet excel­lent local vari­ety.

This year Mennella decided to pack a lim­ited num­ber of 1.5‑liter bot­tles — a big­ger for­mat of the clas­sic Butterfly often adopted for pre­mium Champagne that he also uses in a smaller for­mat for the 250ml bot­tles — with a spe­cial label and an ele­gant box, to be used as a gift or for spe­cial occa­sion.

In 2013 only about 100 spe­cial packs” have been made, the bot­tles mainly filled with Carpellese or other Madonna dell’Olivo’s oils on request. Many of them were sent to the U.S., one of the main mar­kets for this small Italian com­pany. For 2014, he plans to do pretty much the same num­ber of the spe­cial pack­age made much more for pres­tige than busi­ness.

After hav­ing redesigned the brand’s logo and labels in the past three years, the mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary design stu­dio NJU — based in Eboli, Cilento — described this inno­v­a­tive pack­ag­ing solu­tion: It lever­ages — through a dis­tinc­tive 1.5 litre mag­num bot­tle choice, tex­ture and etched illus­tra­tive detail — the her­itage, high qual­ity and cel­e­bra­tory spirit asso­ci­ated with cham­pagne and the expe­ri­ence and pas­sion of a crafts­man.”

Richard Baird, an English free-lance designer spe­cial­ized in logos, brand and pack­ag­ing and edi­tor at The DieLine, also wrote, There is an almost reduc­tion­ist approach to the pack­ag­ing solu­tion in the way that it favors imagery and struc­tural choice as visual metaphors, rather than focus­ing on direct and con­ven­tional cues. Making great use of estab­lished per­cep­tions cross pol­li­nated from other indus­tries to achieve a com­mu­nica­tive sim­plic­ity and a visual quiet­ness that feels sophis­ti­cated but not abstract. A solu­tion that com­pli­ments a propo­si­tion likely to appeal to cus­tomers with an already estab­lished brand rela­tion­ship look­ing for some­thing dis­tinc­tive for a spe­cial occa­sion.”

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NJU Creative Director, Mario Cavallaro

The exte­rior of NJU’s design solu­tion con­sists of a box with two, well-spaced, upper­case, san-serif weights with unusual cuts across the ter­mi­nals, vary­ing stroke widths and plenty of unprinted space” for a min­i­mal­ist effect. A sil­ver block foil fin­ish only strength­ens the Premium imag­ine of the pack­ag­ing, and its con­tent. On the con­trary, the bot­tle’s design and graphic seems to be more related to the themes of her­itage, expe­ri­ence and value of crafts­man­ship.

According to Baird, it even draws an anal­ogy between endur­ing reli­gious his­tory and the ancient prac­tice of olive oil pro­duc­tion” due to the styl­ized image of a woman — rep­re­sent­ing the Madonna of the Sanctuary near the farm — that seems to be etched in a mono­chro­matic print on the paper of the pecu­liar leaflet/label. In the inside, it con­tains infor­ma­tion about the farm, hand writ­ten details about the selected oil and nar­ra­tive ele­ments that rein­force the com­mu­nica­tive ele­ments of the design. The Madonna seems to be blind­folded by the rub­ber band that keeps the label closed, also remind­ing of the good luck-bear­ing god­dess Fortuna.

Mario Cavallaro, cre­ative direc­tor of NJU, said: We are very happy for this recog­ni­tion to our research in design qual­ity. And we are even more happy as this means that we suc­ceeded in giv­ing Antonino Mennella’s great extra vir­gin olive oil, which has been awarded world­wide, the right cover for the brand’s promise. But most of all, we are proud that two enter­prises (both the stu­dio and the client) estab­lished in Southern Italy have been appraised and appre­ci­ated in such an impor­tant con­text as San Francisco, beside some high stand­ing inter­na­tional stu­dios and brands.”



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