The well-known Argentinean designer, who successfully updated the image of the world famous beer Beck’s, is now responsible for the visual transformation of Kamenitza, the most important Bulgarian beer.

For many reasons, his agency, Pierini Partners, has grown to currently become one of the most important branding and packaging design studios in Argentina. However, their projects are still surprising, not only for the geographic range of his clients (located in countries such as Thailand, Colombia, England, Turkey, United States, Bolivia, Belgium, Paraguay, Peru and Bulgaria), but also for the ability of handling the global aesthetic codes in a relatively easy way.

Kamenitza is a new example of this. It’s not only a brand, it’s “The Bulgarian brand”, and it has been connected with the life of the people in that beautiful European town for 130 years.

The new design process started with a preliminary study of the situation, to proceed later to a designing stage that was based in strong and steady argumentative reasons. The conclusion of this analysis was that the aesthetic of the brand was outdated. Consumers have renewed, so an updating was extremely important to the brand. This was not a minor issue; the existing layout had a basic side band, which functioned as a support of an extremely rigid logotype, and there was no integration between the shield, the brand, the medals and all the complementary information.

With this diagnosis, the prestigious Argentinean designer decided to generate a much more personal, attractive and memorable identity. To achieve these important objectives, the first step was to update the shield, making it more stylized, elegant and attractive, and magnifying its most emblematic figure: the lion. Then, he gave the logotype the value it deserves by improving the aesthetic of the base (adding contention lines and twirls) and incorporating personal features in the font with rounded and friendly shapes, as an effective way of giving more personality and recognition.

The hardness was turned into proximity, and the coldness and composition mistakes of the current icon into attractive and appropriate elements for the target.

Regarding to the color palette, he decided to maintain the original green because of its important historical value. Therefore, the background was visually improved with the incorporation of sub-tones in the typographical scheme, combined with an amplified reference of the lion.

Last but not least, the medals show how much the brand knows about beer, so their presence was strengthened by using them in an accurate way in the upright white band, adding twirls and shadows.

Kamenitza is now 130 years old, and celebrates its birthday with a new identity and an updated packaging that will face to the new century, communicating with their consumers on equal terms, taking into account their needs and becoming a real accomplice of their best moments.

Materials Kindly provided by Pierini Partners. Many thanks to Sol Casais.

Here we get a glimpse at the work process on the brand.

Similar posts: here, here, and here

Work by Designworks

New Zealand’s design studio responsible for many fresh ideas and will be featured here in coming days.

Monteiths latest pioneering beer, Single Source, began with a single minded idea; to create a uniquely New Zealand beer that could re-awaken a beer lovers appreciation of the craft and skill that goes into creating beers with recognisably authentic qualities. Something with real character, integrity and undeniable class. A new breed of batch-brewed lagers unswervingly true to the land and the people it comes from.

The project was idealistic … What if we handpicked ingredients? What if we sought out the superstars of the barley and hop-growing world – the guys who think like chefs and select their ingredients for quality and taste above all? What if we could create beers with totally unique varietal personalities and then give the drinker the ability to identify not only the variety of hop it contains, but the region, the brewer and the individual block on which it was grown?

Designworks’ Michael Crampin was clear that the task was bigger than the beer itself. “Monteith’s wanted to champion the beer category and raise it up to achieve a new appreciation for the quality and diversity of our beer brewers and the brewing process”, he says. “Bar owners were telling us that beer wasn’t interesting enough, while winemaking is viewed as an almost spiritual process – the romance and mystery and the art of melding man, land and climate to create a unique expression. There’s so much magic around wine and pride in our national product, but in a well-made beer there are a lot of points in the chain that are actually more complicated than winemaking. We needed to tell that story, introduce new interest and make selecting and drinking a beer a rewarding learning experience as well as sensory one.”

He says Single Source is the first beer of its type in New Zealand to really hero the process and philosophy of ‘beer of origin’ and the design of the brand serves to support that with the black glass bottle protecting contents from light and heat and a QR code on each bottle (when scanned by an iPhone) revealing the story of genesis – telling the drinker exactly where their beer ‘ales’ from.

Design director of the project, Jef Wong, was keen to honour the story through every facet of its identity. “The design approach was to place the product at the fore – it’s all about the journey that is taken to create a beer that fits the brewers ideals. The name is that process – Single Sourcing – handpicking place and people, the bottle as a protector, the signature line as the human journey of the beer’s creation.”

Monteith’s Russell Browne sums up the Single Source ideal. “When we started out on the journey to create Single Source we realised we had to do things differently or we’d merely end up with the same results. Once Tony had gone to such lengths with Ian and Bill to create such an interesting beer, the last thing we wanted was for it to get lost by looking and behaving like just any other beer.

“The black bottle adds to our objectives to deliver the tastes of our land by preserving it’s freshness but it also allowed us to look different to the current beer category. The way this beer is talked about will also allow people to discover the beer for what it is – something truly different to other beers currently on offer.”

And how, exactly does it taste? According to Monteith’s masterbrewer, Tony Mercer, Single Source is a “bottom fermented pilsner with a pale straw colour and flavour that begins with a soft bitterness that builds delicately with an aromatic balance, ending with a sharp, dry finish.”

Yet another example the power of the black. Almost any color pops on back blackground but to do so right, you must maintain restraint. It is easy to get carried away and clutter work with un-neccessary images or info, or other way  round not give enough content. As you can see it has been executed with style.

I must appreciate the freedom the client gave the designer. Usually, clients want to put all kinds of promotional messages on the packaging not even remotely related to the product itself and usually thats where bad design begins.

By Adrián Pierini

We are pleased to publish here very interesting article about rules which needed to be applied  while judging efficiently design works. Tanks to Adrian Pierini and Sol Casais.

Motivated by the many simple opinions announced in digital and graphic media, the well-known
Argentinean designer Adrián Pierini, enlist 10 essential points that clients, marketing and creative people,
should ALWAYS consider when evaluating strategic design pieces.

This article may be a bad one… or it may be good. How would we evaluate it? Which criterion would we use?
Our experience? Our literary knowledge? Our interest in the subject? Or may be our low or high expectations
of it?
Actually, depending on the approach to something, we would obtain different visions on the same reality.
Perhaps as many as human beings on Earth, who have influence in the way we understand our environment
and everything contained in it. Nowadays, when visual culture is more and more powerful, graphic design
is not an exception. New launchings are judged with different parameters which, in many cases, are not
truthful. Evaluating a design piece is, paradoxically, as simple as complex. Simple, as superficiality tempts us
and seduces us to think only in the aesthetic and the tangible side as an argument. Complex, as we need more
than a good criterion; we have to know how to read between the lines in order to talk with suitability about
the design.
Then, how could we establish a more accurate opinion on this problem? Which are the golden rules I should
consider when evaluating a communicational piece?
I retail 10 points that should not go unnoticed and that, humbly, are no more than conclusions I reached after
many years of experience.

Rule Nº 1
Pretty and ugly do not exist
The job of strategic designer does not always imply creating pretty, shocking or grandiloquent things, but
he should ALWAYS achieve the client’s commercial aims. The visual communicator is just an instrument, a
medium that uses objective rationality to reach the subjective emotion of the target. No more, no less than
that.

Rule Nº 2
The underlying story of the design cannot be cancelled
When we express our opinion on a piece, we must know its background. That would allow us to understand
the evolution of the launching and the aesthetic. To innovate does not mean to “ignore”, and that is why
there are many developments in the market that, despite the fact that they are not very innovative, they are a
great example of the respect for the brand history and the consumers’ feeling for it.

Rule Nº 3
The aims to achieve cannot be ignored

As I said at the beginning of the article, there is a bad tendency to the superficial valuation of the design
projects, and that relativity is a consequence of how they ignore what has determined the layout. What were
they looking for with a redesign? Why did they apply a radical change? Did the brand need to go back to its
origins? Was there an identification problem at the sales point that required a change in the structure? The
overrating of the global tendencies and the forced comparisons between categories, usually incompatibles,
turn out to be some of the vices that underlie in many professional argumentations which, sadly, destroy an
efficient piece, just because it does not align with the general tendency.

Rule Nº 4
To consider always the customs and cultures in which the design must interact
Those who know the problem of brand-packaging will agree with me when I state that an aesthetic resource
cannot be applied at random. The sense of colours, of shapes, of words varies from one continent to another,
from one country to another, from one province to another and even… from one family to another. Action
and Reaction must be the motto. Strategic design must be subdue to the strictest laws of supply and demand,
and it is basic to understand that demand. And with good reason, the consumers bear a great amount of
feelings, emotions and valuations, made through conscious or unconscious messages from their parents and
grandparents. This cultural heritage will determine whether the proposal will be admitted or rejected, and
there is little critics can do to escape this basic rule. A designer must speak for the target, his/her basic reason
will consist in taking the client’s message and translate it in an appropriate language, able to reach consumers
in a focusing way and to generate a solid, specific, lasting, and above all authentic emotional dialogue.

Rule Nº 5
To know the technical limitations and the current legislations
When speaking about a design, some aspects must be considered such as the requirements of
implementation of the category, the laws in the country, or the physic characteristics that the product
demands. Factors such as the printing system, the types of material on which an art can be applied (this
implies many important themes, as ink absorption, clarity and bright possibilities, toxicity of the material,
etc), the local level of technological development, the abilities and knowledge of the people involved in
the process, the care in supervision, the adequate deal in the later distribution, etc. are enough reasons to
generate, in the different aesthetics, an inequality in quality. It is not the same to create a wine label than a
packaging for chewing gums. It is not the same to print in offset on an extra white and high quality paper, than
in flexography in 4 colours, on polythene.

Rule Nº 6
Context eventualities and strategic reactions rules
Big companies are always alert to the market movements. Not every development has an organized process.
When a competitor threats with the launching of an innovative product which will attack the category,
marketing teams react rapidly and look to face the novelty with different resources, packaging design
included. In this context of movements and vertigo, priorities are modified, aesthetic factors are more
functional than ever, and layouts become the spokesman of the defensive strategy. When analyzing a design,
it is important to consider this situation. Was it fast? Was it effective?… It was excellent!

Rule Nº 7
To consider the amount of funds assigned to the idea
The lack of money generates an interesting duality: in some cases, it becomes one of the main causes of
degradation in a design and in others; it contributes to the emergence of creative solutions, when the lack of

resources turns out to be the principal advantage of the layout. Now, although it is true that some designers
had known (or were able to) explode the lack of funds, that does not generally occur. It does not necessarily
have to be with inability, but with the influence of many external factors, where we can include the client’s
fear of making incursions into ground-breaking ideas, the impossibility of implementing innovative ideas on
a large scale, the necessity of being direct in order to minimize the risk of making mistakes in the message
decodification, etc.
When judging, then, one should be benign and value the huge effort some designers have to make to reach
worthy solutions in such adverse circumstances.

Rule Nº 8
To evaluate the design in the codes of its category
One cannot pretend that a coffee looks like a perfume or that a box of cereal looks like a soap powder. Each
area has established, as time went by, a language that consumers understand rapidly, and that helps them to
detect the product in an immediate way in the market shelves.
When judging an art, it is fundamental to frame it in these characteristics. In that way, one can understand
better the election of the typography, the images and even the shape of the pack.

Rule Nº 9
To consider the achievement of the commercial aims as a parameter of success
Is it right to establish that a successful packaging is designed badly? Can we argue that a layout is inadequate
just because convention states that beauty is a synonym of creativity? No.
My experience tells me that although a good aesthetic makes undoubtedly a message more effective, it does
not guarantee commercial success, and even less to reach consumers’ hearts. A strategic packaging is not
a decorative element; we are not talking about trophies with the ones we can presume how pretty it looks.
There are products with questionable aesthetics which maintains inalterable and, even so, people love them.
Others have gone backwards, looking to eliminate their image of extreme modernity, as they realized that
strategy has separated them from the consumers. Every point detailed in this article demonstrates that a critic
must be deeper and indissoluble of its circumstances and context. Above all, resources must head towards
selling and, with that aim, we should then establish what is really convenient.

Rule Nº 10
To see beyond and to understand that an analyzed design is the beginning of something greater
At last, it is fundamental not to be content with the first impression. When watching a piece, one must
understand that packaging is the spearhead of multiple messages and subsequent actions. A correct design
is the one which offers conceptual and aesthetic elements, able to maintain and nourish the commercial
strategy. To evaluate an art in the longer term, there are two basic points to be considered: the functional
aspect, I mean, the ability of the layout to allow an expansion and new lines; to generate through by-products
a solid and consistent brand image. On the other side, the emotional aspect, how the elements in the
composition will create a solid and lasting bond between the consumers and the product.

Conclusion
In this article, I intended to transform the judges or critics toward design pieces. Many marketing people and
designers express their opinion knowing few or nothing about the piece, diminishing a work that took months,
or even years. Judging is easy; to do it properly is not.
Just seeing some web sites and reading the debate towards a new launching is enough. Even though there
are some fine opinions, many are too simple, basic and even degrading. Those who worked in this marvelous

discipline can really benefit and grow with the critics, but these, to be adequate, should be based on valid
arguments and in something concrete, in the reality. That is why knowing the underlying causes will create a
more respectful atmosphere, a healthier and more constructive debate.
Appropriateness in the category and in the target, optimum decoding, efficient transmission of the aims
and commercial success, are some of the main arguments a professional designer should take into account
when judging and expressing opinion. A packaging does not always have to be “modern”, “innovating”,
and “ground-breaking”. Professionals in strategic communication do not have to design for the vanguard, but
always, ALWAYS, look for effectiveness.

Adrián Pierini

*COPYING AND REPRODUCTION ALLOWED AS LONG AS THE AUTHOR IS QUOTED.

About Pierini Partners:
Pierini Partners is a prestigious Argentinean design Studio, which specializes in strategic branding and packaging. Currently, the studio
is working with brands like Unilever (England, Brazil, Thailand and Argentina, for Rexona (Sure/Degree) and Axe (Lynx)), International
Beverages/InBev (Bolivia, Paraguay, USA, England, Belgium, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Argentina, for Beck’s, Stella Artois, Hoegaarden,
Quilmes, Pilsen, Kamenitza, Brahma, Rogan, Paceña, Taquiña, Andes, Huari, Liberty, Bicervecina El Inca, Iguana y Patagonia), Cadbury
Stani Adams (South America, for Bubbaloo, Sparkies, Chíclets, Trident), General Mills (Central America and the Caribbean, for Haagen
Dazs, Nature Valley and Betty Crocker), Riopaila (Colombia, designing sugar packaging), New Patagonia (USA and Argentina, for Aguas
Premium Lauquen, Patagonian State and South Virgo), Molinos Cañuelas (Argentina, for flours and by-products), Sherwin Williams
(Argentina, for Loxon, Rexpar, Proclassic, Krylon), Embotelladora Don Jorge (Perú, for Agua Vida), and more.

About Adrián Pierini
He is a graphic designer, graduated from Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), where he worked as a teacher. He had worked in Mexico and
the USA, and directing creative teams in the most important Argentinean design studios. He has been offering workshops and lectures in
companies and universities in Latin America for over seven years.
Adrián Pierini is currently Pierini Partners’s CEO, also his founder, and has been working for over 18 years. His portfolio includes more
than 420 projects, and many of them have been implemented in global scale. He is the author of “Designers Go!”, in which he wrote
about different subjects linked to applied methodology and many articles about strategic branding and packaging. He is also the only
Latin American in the selected group of designers in Pentawards jury, the most important packaging award. He is columnist in web sites,
such as Popsop (Rusia) and The Dieline (USA), among others.

For further information: www.pierinipartners.com |

Thanks..

by Glasfurd & Walker

Minimalistic approach. Simple and effective design

Chambar Ale is the first of a new range of Belgian style beers produced by renowned Vancouver restaurant, Chambar. With a character that embodies the restaurant’s motto of ‘Civilized Debauchery’, Chambar Ale was crafted for pairing with great food and good friends. It’s a beer for those who love life’s finer things; a beer for the connoisseur.

With this in mind, the label design and production was critical to the beer’s positioning. The bespoke label is screen printed in 22ct gold, precious metal ink onto amber glass bottles.

In addition to the label design, the studio also addressed six pack packaging, coasters, tap handles and sales material.

Designed by Morkman Reklambyrå

“Sigtuna is an up and coming micro brewery just outside of Stockholm, Sweden. They have recently received numberous awards for their beers and continue to reap success within the beer communities. This years christmas lager needed a design that highlighted the premium characteristics of the beverage, while adding a new twist to the symbolism of the holidays.”

Espluga + Asociados designed a special edition of Estrella Levante’s monoblock bottle beer.

This northwestern-style pale ale was both brewed and designed by Renee Fernandez and Ryan Rhodes. It was made for fun, and to enjoy with their friends… ?

Designed by Aesthetic Apparatus.

“We are in the midst of an amazing collaboration with Surly Brewing Co. right now, and have just finished up our second installment of art for three different Surly beers this year. First was Surlyfest, now Darkness. Surly’s Darkness is in it’s fourth year, and is building a reputation that is bordering on “legendary.” Screw that, it’s legendary. This year, people were camped out at the brewery 30 hours in advance in order to get a ticket to buy some beer at Darkness Day, the release party for the beer. Even before the gates opened, the party looked like it had already gone through a couple stages and was ramping up again. It’s very strange to see sidewalks littered with craft beers.”

by Blend-It

Branding and design for the Golan Brewery. The Golan Brewery was launched as a joint venture by the Ohayon family and the Golan Heights Winery. Located in Katzrin, the brewery produces beer of an international caliber. In our search for a design concept, we engaged in a dialogue between the local and the sophisticated, the masculine and the liberated, and the rugged and the cultured.

Åbro Export is a new beer that will complement the Åbro product family with a classic yet updated and clean beer design, accessible to a wide target audience.

by Nopicnic

It is a new luxurious beer brewed with sumptuous ingredients according to the old German method of decoction. The full flavor is achieved by heating mash by removing parts of it, then boiling it and returning the hot mash to the mash tun thus raising the temperature of the whole. Åbro Export is brewed using a level of 12% of the finest München and Pilsner Malt. Compared to the average 2-6% in the product portfolio.