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

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

The Dieline Package Design Conference took place at The Moscone Center in San Francisco as part of the HOW Design Live event, with over 1,100 entries from 61 coun­tries for the 2013 Dieline Package Design Awards, chaired by Debbie Millman. Madonna Dell’Olivo, an award-win­ning olive oil farm in Italy, received recog­ni­tion for its inno­v­a­tive pack­ag­ing design, cre­ated in col­lab­o­ra­tion with NJU design stu­dio, which lever­aged the her­itage and qual­ity of the prod­uct in a lim­ited-edi­tion 1.5‑liter bot­tle for­mat.

Made in Italy Package Designs Get Dieline Nods

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.”

Mario Cavallaro
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.

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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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