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Packaging design for the Olive Oil Cooperative of Viannos (Bienna)*

“Eat as we have for generations.”

One of our best-received packaging designs ever, the Viannos design is a testament that sometimes all you need to make a mark, is a simple story.

The Cretan village of Viannos is famous for its ancient olive trees and its history of passionate villagers who come together for their community. The lands containing the olive trees are known for producing the PDO Viannos oil of excellent quality, with a distinctive spicy flavor and are passed down through the generations, inherited by the villagers who come from all walks of life.
The seed for this Red Dot winning packaging design was planted when a cooperative of 65 villagers — from shepherds to teachers, doctors, lawyers and everything in between — approached us to design packaging that expressed their love for producing and consuming olive oil while honoring the past. They wanted to export the same oil they consumed and enjoyed daily, not sold like a treasure to be made available only in small increment amounts. The oil had to be able to flow freely, just like it does on their tables at home.

Our challenge was designing a concept that would stand out from the many olive oil brands that were each vying for the spotlight while working with a limited budget.

To symbolize the history of the lands and the friendship between the families that have been producing olive oil for decades, we designed a ‘family tree’ of signatures, signed by all of the involved producers within the cooperative. To honor Greek tradition the signatures included their fathers’ names, denoting both the history and family aspect of this unique cooperative. We chose to work with two primary colors, black and white. Historically, black is the color of the Cretan warrior of old. White provided the natural contrast making the designs really ‘pop out.’ This made the packaging easier and cheaper to produce, while still lending itself to two versions of the design, made possible by merely reversing the color scheme.

Viannos is the story of a village of oil producers coming together to produce and export the oil they consume daily. “Eat as our families have for generations” is the message it tells.