QDE PRIZE - 2005

The designs for the labels were so many, in every format, shape, and colour, and utilising every system of attaching the label to the bottle. The best labels are still paper labels. The contest actually specifies this characteristic, eliminating any possible experimentation. This label is triangular, on paper with a handmade look and the main lettering hot-stamped in gold. Gold-foil lettering like this is never easily readable; the light must fall on it in just the right way. So one must hold the bottle carefully, tilt it, or slightly rotate it. Easy legibility is not an absolute must in our case, since this is an uncommon magnum, in a limited edition, and the collector know what it contains, as do the guests who will be the favoured recipients of this Franciacorta. If we wanted to make the printing easily readable we would print it as black on white. But the wine is well known, and thus the labels become more of a decorative motif rather than a means of identification; it is like the passport of a famous personage. It must be there, but it is useless. Our triangle measures 12 centimetres per side; it is equilateral, of course, to convey the idea of internal balance. Its three corners project themselves in different directions and symbolise dynamic energy. The wording is in Optima, devoid of any manipulation or deformation, and conjures up a vaguely rationalistic classicism. It exhibits a logical sense of reading by utilising a logical division of the component words, and the form of their composition suggests, perhaps as a sub-conscious impression, that of a cluster of grapes. The triangular form could also suggest a glass, or better, a stemmed wineglass, although this is not a wine that one drinks in a normal wineglass. The label has a green background which should blend in with the glass of the bottle. The paper is a large-grained rustic type, but rather sophisticated, and with a distinctive feel to it. The gold lettering is embossed, and one should notice and feel that effect, since the hot-stamped gold has the effect of flattening the grain of the paper. The label contains all the necessary information, including the logogram of the producer, which appears perfectly integrated into the whole. The label is opaque coated, naturally. If a printed label had not been specifically required, metallic letters printed directly on the bottle would be an excellent suggestion. The effect of this procedure could be studied simply by producing an appropriate stencil and printing in off gold on transparent film. Or utilising a silk-screening process. Or even, for a much more sophisticated effect, one can die-cut a very thin silver foil then print in gold, and the writing would wrap on the bottle as a net. Of course, the dimensions could be larger. Presenting these kinds of experimental possibilities would of course require an appropriate expenses reimbursement. Research does have its cost, but it very often is worth the time spent on it. Finally, I take the liberty of making a small suggestion. Since this is a very special type of product, a taste of it during the creative research stage might effectively move that research in the correct direction, allowing a more emotional approach, more in depth, more personal. Mutual understanding seems to be fundamental for an effective communications project.

Solution A

On the large, elegant magnums of Il Mosel Franciacorta DOCG Brut 1990 RD belongs not a traditional label but, functioning as an impressive heraldic device, silk-screening in gold; in its graphic simplicity, it would immediately draw attention to the excellence of the product. This would be an up-to-date graphic element that ignores nothing; rather, it is a clear reference to the tradition and to the “liturgy,” visual as well, that accompanies the great Franciacorta Bruts.

Solution B

This solution frees the product image from the encumbering stereotype of the label, always a single label, in that position, immutable forever. Without sacrificing anything of the required elegance and of the sensory elements of tradition, which are fundamental to bottles of Franciacorta Brut, one can suggest a physiognomy that will be identical bottle after bottle, but at the same time, bottle after bottle, different as well. Small gilded self-adhesive strips of paper, each one bearing the required information–name, vintage, producer–, allow a free-form application that will be utterly characteristic of each bottle. Each bottle will be thus unique, but recognisable.

Since we are dealing with a classic and prestigious wine, we have designed a label in a vertical format, 14cm high and 6cm wide (half the diameter of the bottle), executed on straw-coloured laid paper that will have the same tonality of the wine in the bottle. Considering the name of the wine, Franciacorta Brut RD, and in particular its length in terms of the number of characters, it was thought preferable to create a trademark logogram by dividing up the words into a sequence of novel syllables. The logogram in composed in a classic font, Didot. The texts, in gold, would be in slight relief.

The decision to use a hand-written script corresponds to the concept of the bottle as a “unique work”, which contains an intense sparkling wine linked to an irrepeatable emotion. The sober character of the calligraphic composition, which achieves its aesthetic balance in the relationship between the full and empty spaces, aims to mirror the “elegant taste and great equilibrium” of the 1990 Brut. The immediate accessibility of the script corresponds in turn to the wine’s “lively, appealing palate.” The form emerges from a study of the compositional possibilities, beginning with an analysis of the single shape of each letter, both uppercase and lowercase, and then from the correspondences that emerge from their relationships to each other, as well as from the four numbers of the production year.

Thus we have the harmonious interrelationship between the uppercase letters of Brut and the four numbers of 1990, a correspondence that follows the relationship between the rounded as well as the non-rounded characters and gives a unitary significance to the whole, transforming the sign of the script into a higher-level, distinctive sign-symbol. This can exercise the function of an identification that is the hallmark of a product brand logo, which can accompany the brand logo of the Mosnel company. The use of a circular shape springs from the conviction that the pure shape of the circle, in its classic essence, corresponds as well to a conception that has its roots in Italian Humanism and in the search for geometrical abstractions and golden proportions that derive from a careful study of natural forms. The circle conjures up as well the idea of universality, of the circularity of human experience, of conviviality, of equal distance from the centre, and therefore the most perfect balance. The attachment of the circular label to the bottle transforms it into an oval, which conforms perfectly to the design of the bottle itself, and it could also bring to mind the natural shape of an individual berry. While it may be easy, in the field of visual design, to find high-quality circular labels on the packaging of various kinds of products intended for food service and catering, we do not think this shape has been used on bottles, except in unusual circumstances. For this type of Brut we thought quite appropriate a shape that even in its absolute simplicity would be nonetheless utterly original and distinctive in this commercial sector. Positive- and negative-field variations on special label papers supplied by wine label printers could also be considered, since that would offer a broader choice of possibilities and of printing or re-printing styles. The handwritten script could also be printed in relief, giving an effect of translucence. We believe that a bronzish or gold hue, say Gruppo Cordenons Stardream Wowe 1s Copper WS paper, would be particularly refined and attractive with printing in black, but it presents the disincentive of being “different” from the gilded covering over the cork, so we suggest the possibility of using for it, in the future, the same tonality as the paper, since the combination would be a further distinctive element.

Label A

Silk-screen onto the glass a 3-colour composition, white, gold, and black. The matter of a label: for a great wine one can choose simplicity of style, if it is accompanied by an elegant minimalism. This label silk-screened onto the bottle is held within a blacked-in frame that bears the name, the trademark and the number 0 of the production year. The number 9, on the other hand, exits from the frame to shift the axis of the label (and the viewer’s gaze) and to graphically follow the roundness of the bottle and thus to echo and reproduce it.

Label B

Silk-screen onto the glass a 3-colour composition, white, gold, and green. The matter of a label: a great wine can be rigorously interpreted, not ignoring perhaps even a hint of irony. This label silk-screened onto glass has no background field to contain the constituting elements. The production year becomes an offshoot of Franciacorta, while on the bottle’s vertical axis, interrupting the rigidity of the horizontal composition, could be a dynamic touch: the subtle upward movement of the bubbles of the bead.

We thought that the label for a great sparkling wine should be the first invitation to sample it. Thus the label-glass that appears as an elegant shape, emphatically original, in a deep black that highlights the stylish typographical choices, simple but status-laden. A label, an emblem, a simple idea that leaves behind a trace of itself.

The main idea behind this project, coordinated in two proposals, can be rendered by the word uniqueness. The high quality of what is in the bottle, its limited edition, and its custom-design label make every bottle of Franciacorta Brut RD 1990 a unique object. And this project aims precisely at showcasing this uniqueness by overturning the usual hierarchy of elements on a label, which normally concedes only a modest space to the progressive series of numbers, or even consigns it to the back label. Here instead the progressive number of each bottle, considered its number in the edition, itself becomes the label, this underscoring and communicating as the first item of information that this is a unique bottle. The reference to the numbering of multiple copies and of art prints suggests a parallel with the cultural value of the oenological product. But there is a further element regarding the label that exhibits this uniqueness. In version A, the background support of the information, denomination, and numbering is deliberately different on each label, the objective being to achieve backgrounds that are never the same on any bottles. Printing on different papers, selected from the vast number of gift and covering papers currently available, would be done in silk-screen for the black type and in hot-stamped gold for the Mosnel logogram, or both could be silk-screened.

In version B on the other hand, which utilises silk-screening onto white hand-made-like paper, the progressive numbering remains he predominant element of the label. In this case, a gilded frame contains only the number, almost as if it were a work of conceptual art. The references to modern art are immediately apparent in both; not only to contemporary art but to the Fluxus movement as well as to the concrete poetry movement, which certainly serve as departure points and as sources of inspiration to give form to an artefact that is not simply a label but the translation, or better the visual interpretation of a valuable content and of a work artistically produced.

The characteristic element is an architectural shape that is meant to represent the “roof” under which the nectar of the gods is produced. In this version, the vintage year is graphically presented in an original way, as is the name of the wine, in order to increase the distinction and memorability of the label.

The vertical format, as well as graphic style, is well suited to highlight the scale of values of the information: the vintage on top, in Roman numbers, to underscore the product’s classicity and to confer increased importance on the year, whose “month of September was the best in human memory.” The 1990 becomes, in the body of the label, the graphic element that encloses the name of the wine. As can be seen, we have identified in the vintage year the label’s main graphic characteristic and the chief determining factor, since the other informational elements are of a recurring character.