Packaging Design: Wine bottles

The Design of Wine

Rethink Table Wine

Jug wine is rarely a thing of elegance, but the people at Rethink Communications turned this truth on its head with their own wine packaging design.  Rethink Table Wine is a conceptual product used to showcase this design firm’s talents with packaging.  This series of wine labels features iconic contemporary tables like the Saarinen Tulip Table above, the Noguchi Table below and even the classic TV tray table.  Let’s just hope these things aren’t filled with Carlo Rossi…

Rethink Table Wine Gallery

Neige Ice Cider Packaging

Neige Ice Cider is amongst the most premier ice ciders in the world, a delectable alcoholic drink inspired by ice wine production in chilly Quebec.  Neige translates to English as “snow”, icons of which flurry behind the product that fills this bottle.  The Neige Ice Cider packaging portrays the elite status of this drink in the world of hard cider, a recipe which yields a truly rare flavor in the world of fermented fruit cocktails.  In warm summers or cold winters by the fire, this bottle and the drink within are both a treat to be enjoyed.

Neige Ice Cider Packaging Gallery

Tierra Earth Wine

The Monastrell grape is not an easy one to grow, nor is it easy to produce wine from.  But Agapito Rico, a master of Spanish viniculture, worked to produce brilliant wines from this and other grapes in Spain’s wine growing region.  The Tierra Earth Wine packaging design was created to honor him, to stock a fine Monastrell wine within and the earth from whence it came without.  This, the work of Eduardo del Fraile, is a stunning and simple package, and we hope its execution avoids a drop of earth into the glass while pouring– that could devastate the value of such an unique wine packaging design.

Naked King Wine Packaging

A fine Greek wine was produced to be the best of its growing region, a king amongst Grecian viticulture.  BeetRoot Design Group was hired to clothe this wine, and adopted the tale of The Emperor’s Clothes to tell this story. The Naked King Wine, as it was to be called, showcases this wine wearing nothing more than a crown– no loud logo, no overbearing selling points, just a simple white crown on an otherwise blank bottle.  To continue the story, BeetRoot placed a page of the story by Hans Christian Andersen on the exterior of the box with the words highlighted, “the king is naked”.

Naked King Wine Packaging Gallery

Buddy Mulled Wine

Speaking of seasonal mulled wine, the folks at Buddy Creative came to party with a product of their own, the Buddy Mulled Wine.  Buddy sent this playful bottle out to friends and clients for the holidays, a design that featured a drunk-o-meter to show just how much fun this drink will deliver.  Having had our fair share of mulled wine ourselves, we think another line would have been fitting below “Christmas”– namely, “hangover”!

Executive Wine

Designer Derek Perez has fashioned a collection of wine packaging designs called The Executive Wines for his student portfolio.  Inspired by modern day business wear, these bottles are lined with pinstripe patterns and color-coordinated neck ties that match the color of the grape within.  Merlot, Pinto Grigio, Chardonnay and more are all matched with a simple label that looks ready for the conference room or the first glass of happy hour.

Executive Wine Gallery

Longitude Wines by Rob Schellenberg

The Longitude Wines Collection by Rob Schellenberg are a design homage to the great wine growing regions of Italy.  Each of these five bottles is marked with a longitude measure of a growing region, plus a topographical map of that region’s geographic character.  This simple but poignant design communicates the details of a wine’s vintage without traditional text, and does so with a refreshing modern layout that sets it apart from the rest.

Longitude Wines by Rob Schellenberg Gallery

Helderberg Wijnmakerij

We saw a bit of this in our last list of wine packaging designs– a triptych-style panorama created by arranging multiple bottles together.  This design by Fanakalo for Helderberg Wijnmakerij is the most impressive we’ve seen in this style, a stunning landscape illustration with embossed clouds in the white space above.  Arrange three bottles as shown above, the whole scene rolls out for the viewer.  The detail really must be seen (or felt) to be believed, as the detail shot below and to the left shows a bit of the whirling embossed clouds that stand out from the label.

Helderberg Wijnmakerij Gallery

Marks and Spencer Wine in a Cup

While this design may have been laughed out of most wine circles, it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t have functional value.  A range of venues could make use of the Marks and Spencer Wine in a Cup design, including air travel, movie theaters, gourmet take-out and more.  While wine purists may scoff, we felt the sheer utility of this design deserved inclusion on our list.

Changing Lanes Wine

Changing Lanes Wine is the product of two “Lanes”, specifically Mark Lane and John Lane who are both shown in the label above.  The image changes as the bottle is tilted, showing one Lane and then the other to communicate the brand name Changing Lanes.  While the execution is quite complex, the impact is strong and simple– enough to have garnered this design its fair share of awards.

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Bike shelf by Chris

Seed Cathedral by Thomas Heatherwick

The Seed Cathedral by Thomas Heatherwick represented the United Kingdom at the 2010 Shanghai Expo.  This amazing work of sculptural architecture comprises 60,000 acrylic rods, each one bearing a plant seed at its inner tip.  This building has dual roles– one to house and inform the visitors of the Shanghai Expo, and to also act as a seed bank to archive Earth's ecological history.  The Expo was home to many great architectural achievements, where the Danish Pavilion and the South Korean Pavilion also stood out, but the Seed Cathedral was the most significant. 

Guangdong Museum by Rocco Design Architects

Rocco Design Architects have completed a fascinating new work of architecture in China's Guangzhou province, the Guangdong Museum of Art.  The rectangular structure of the museum appears almost alien in nature, with a sliced and cut facade featuring random indentation accents.  The museum doesn't feel like a work of municipal architecture, but a concept of science fiction come to life.

Visitors enter the Guangdong Musuem through a stone-paved depression on its central lawn.  Inside, the design is slightly more conservative than its outer skin, filled with light from a large central skylight and styled in a contemporary fashion.  Across its five stories, the museum features four exhibition halls which host over 130,000 exhibits.  In all, an effective and visually striking piece of sculptural architecture.

Best of 2010 : The Polish Pavilion

The Polish Pavilion is inspired by the geometric paper-cut patterns of Polish lore.  It's angular shape welcomes its visitors in a monolithic fashion, designed to represent the history and strength of Polish culture.  Of the pavilions at Expo 2010 Shanghai, its design speaks most clearly of it's country of origin.  About the pavilion, WWA Architects explained, "Given the nature of the exposition, the exhibition facility has to denote, by its aesthetic distinctiveness, the country of origin, has to constitute, by the strength of its stylistic connotations, an evocative, recognizable and memorable cultural ideogram."  The Poland Pavilion is a success in this manner, clearly one of this world expo's greatest architectural works.

Best of 2010

Kanagawa Institute of Technology's Glass Building

The Kanagawa Institute of Technology has a breathtaking new work space thanks to a design by Junya Ishigami and Associates.  This glass building provides an open connection to the Tokyo Bay environment, a place of quiet cooperation for hard working students.  Inside, plants are fed naturally from rays of sun that enter through the walls and sky lights, giving the interior a lush, green feel where life grows just like the ideas nurtured at KIT. 

   

   

Best of 2010: Vodaphone Headquarters by Barbosa Guimarães

Vodaphone Headquarters by Barbosa Guimarães

Shortly before the calendar rolled over to the year 2010, Vodaphone revealed a new international headquarters as designed by Barbosa Guimaraes, a truly wonderous building.  The Vodaphone Headquarters, located in Porto, Portugal is a wild work of sculptural architecture, a building that appears to be born in dreams, not reality.  The design was envisioned as an extension of Vodafone's slogan, "Life in Motion", as the headquarters building appears to be growing, and developing in a fashion far outside of conventional thinking.  While the structure is sculptural, its execution is purely functional.  This unconventional building does not hinder its purpose by being overly flashy or different.  It is at once functional and progressive, a success in the world of modern architecture.

 

Recycled furniture : Rag Chair

 
This chair is layered from the contents of 15 bags of rags. It arrives ready made but the user has the option to recycle its own discarded clothes to be included in the design. Each piece is unique; a treasure-chest of memories. Designed for Droog

Table Tap by Arnott Visser

Inspired by inventions and scientific research, this object’s basic function has been put into a new context. Table tap also reminds us of a perfume atomiser, though now it functions as a small water pump at the table. Pouring a simple glass of water really is a fascinating experience.Main material is borosilicate silicone