Absolut Flavours

Agency: Brand Union Stockholm
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Packaging Content: Vodka

A fearless dedication to creativity was the inspiration for the branding of Absolut Flavours range of vodkas. With a brief to dramatise ‘flavour’ through new packaging design, we gave Absolut a unique visual expression, creating stand out and real distinction

The brief
Our brief was to create a visual flavour family built on the creative heritage of Absolut and its ground-breaking collaborations with innovative artists in the contemporary art world. The Absolut Flavours range was to be designed to appeal directly at a group we came to identify as ‘Urban Creative Millenials’.

What we did
Category thinking says that a fruit-flavored vodka requires a picture of the fruit on the bottle. We wanted to break that convention. Instead, we reached into the symbolism and myths tied to the ingredients to find each flavour’s core essence – and then we amplified that essence through art. Our interpretations of the flavors were designed without the use of computers, but with the use of traditional design and craftsmanship tools – pens, paper, crayons, paint and brushes.
With Absolut Apeach, for example, soft pastels and a light hand-drawn gesture were used to capture the fruit’s evanescent, sweet fragility and convey a sense of romance. The design for Absolut Pears began with the fruit’s symbolic association with longevity and purity, and arrived at an abstract pear shape resembling the symbol for eternity. For Absolut Raspberri, the emotion of love and passion is intensified through the abstract expressionist technique of throwing paint. The same artistic process was repeated across the range.

The impact
“This is one of the most dramatic changes we’ve ever made, and our biggest and most transformative design project ever. Our goal was to give our customers distinctive designs that are unlike anything one has ever seen. Vibrant, captivating bottles that bring energy to any occasion and celebrate the fact that every flavour in the Absolut Vodka range is something extraordinary. The standard thinking says a fruit-flavoured vodka requires fruit imagery. We wanted to break that convention.” – Anna Kamjou, Global Design Director at The Absolut Company.