Crit* Valtida Piccola

Multidisciplinary design and advertising agency Bruketa&Žini?have recently completed the packaging for Valtida Piccola, a handmade olive oil produced in the Istria region of Croatia. Their design solution - a combination of large script and fine serif, subtle craft cues and a high quality print finish - delivers a distinctive duality that conveys both the crafted individuality of the product and professional experience of the brand.

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For a two-type solution the design manages to deliver bold, coherent and communicative value through significant contrast within a shared context.

The casual script has a great sense of motion through each character. Its varying stroke widths and terminals neatly convey changing pen pressure that, along with subtle, humanist imperfections, an inconsistent baseline and a smart lack of repetition, achieves a natural, handwritten authenticity but with a professional eye for space and legibility. There is a slightly playful and almost superfluous quality in the loops and ligatures that give the letters a spontaneity and individual character alongside an uppercase confidence that appear both personal - much like a note on a fridge - and authoritative. The rough edges - a neat but simple vector twist - creates the illusion of ink bleeding into paper, an effect that has a watercolour craft sensibility but with the consistent quality of a modern print processes. The large size and stacked layout of the script makes great use of the height and slim width of the bottle.

This organic detail is juxtaposed alongside the more formal and consistent properties of a far smaller, well spaced, serif and italic choice. Both with a perceived sense of heritage and professionalism that works well to temper and frame the youthful enthusiasm and energy of the script.

The colour palette and print treatment - a selecetion that unites the warmth and luxury of gold, a rich, contemporary black, two natural tints of brown and olive green and the creative flourish of the red - each have the premium sparkle of a metallic spot colour. These are amplified by the generous space of the label, which is in turn elevated by the dark glass of the bottle, again providing sharp contrast.

The exterior wrap - a large recurring print, drawn from a roll and cut mid way through the typography, twisted and creased across the neck of the bottle and sealed with a sticker - fuses the high quality of the wine category - reinforced by the date and provenance at the foot - and the tradition and locality of shop packed/ hand assembled goods of the past. Giving the oil a gift piece sensibility and a sense of occasion. 

The rough ink bleed finish of the type work might have been further enhanced through a more tactile, perhaps mixed fibre craft paper choice, but the white remains distinctive within a category that favours darker and conventionally premium tones.

It is a solution that derives impact through contrast without contradiction, a duality that comfortably conveys professional and consistent quality yet individual and regional brand values neatly bound by subtle craft and premium cues.

Richard Baird

Richard is a British freelance design consultant and writer who specialises in logos, branding and packaging. He has written for Brand New and Design Week, featured in Computer Arts magazine, Logology, Los Logos, Logolounge, The Big Book of Packaging and runs the blogs BP&O and Design Survival.

Twitter:@richbaird

Blog: BP&O

Portfolio:richardbaird.co.uk