Handcraft: Touch Wood wrapped beer
The idea for the paper wrapped beer came, not from the client, New Zealand’s Garage Project, but from its design studio Flying Whities, aka designer/illustrator/animator, Tim Gibson. The idea came before the product, Touch Wood was born.
When Garage Project developed the very special Tripel style brew, infused with New Zealand elderflowers and honey, opportunity and initiative came together. The beer is time consuming to produce, and available in only a very limited quantity. The packaging is a similarly complex undertaking.
A white ink transparent label stands proud against its amber bottle, which is wrapped with a fully painted, two-sided wrap – the inner detailing the mystery of the elder tree, and the outer a soft fairy tale scene focusing on the spirit of the elder tree, Hylde Moer. This wrapper is held tightly to the bottle with a vertical golden sticker along the bottles spine.
All the wordy legal information was placed on the sticker so that the story stands alone. So too was the beer’s description, and a brief tease to unwrap the bottle once home. Each of the 2,500 wraps was uniquely numbered.
This is that story:
“According to folklore, the Elder (Sambucus nigra) is a tree imbued with a deep magic. It was said to ward off evil and even that couples who drank an ale infused with the Elderflower would marry within the year. In Denmark a female wood spirit called Hylde-Moer was said to inhabit the tree – woe betide anyone who took from the elder without its permission. The origins of the term ‘touch wood’ come from this desire to placate these woodland spirits. Here, malted barley and wheat infused with Elderflower sugar syrup, fresh Elderflowers and honey create a beer alive with the verdant joy of Spring. You need a bit of good luck to pull off a beer like this – so ‘touch wood’ (and be very careful who you drink it with)!”
The Touch Wood label crest was inspired by books of collected fairy tales, and features the prominent notes on the brew, elderflowers, and New Zealand’s honey-loving bee.
The inner stickers were affixed to the bottle with a simple hand-labeller. Additional type design was created by Ben Johnson at London Studio, a New Zealand Studio that specialises in producing packaging artwork.
Creative technology: Skyy Electrifyy Vodka
According to Campari America’s blurb, “Skyy was born with the belief that everything can be made better with a little fresh thinking.”
So the brand went hunting for some fresh thinking in packaging design. It found a partner in NY’s Mode Design Group and set about creating limited edition custom packaging designed for bottle service.
Skyy Electrifyy is the result. The brand’s intense blue bottle now features a graphic LED label that moves to the beat of music.
Dozens of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are integrated into the new soft-touch label. Batteries, sound sensors and a power switch are housed in its colour-coordinated base. When turned on, the LEDs create a constant illumination of the Skyy logo, and when there is music in its environment, a group of LEDs, arranged in the shape of equaliser bars, move to the beat.
Interactive and naked labeling: Gin Rawal
La Pesca Salada is a small cocktail bar located in Barcelona district, El Raval. The little room was once a store where salted cod fish was sold, so the owners have decorated it with quirky marine references, the ceiling resembles fish skin with a huge sardine can hanging from it and the bathroom, located inside an old refrigerator, is decorated with Playmobil figurines.
The bar serves a dazzling array of gin tonics and one of its drawcards is that it offers brands no one else in Barcelona pours - of both gin and tonic water. One of these is Gin Rawal, the brand La Pesca Salada owns. Swedish creative agency, Dorian, was given the job of creating a label that would underscore the playful marine theme and trend-aware personality of both the bar and its brand.
The illustrated swimmers of the naked labels “interact” with the gin as it is poured from the bottle.
