Brist Olive Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Design: Tina Erman Popović
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: Brist Olive
Photos: Dejan Hren, Maja Danica Pečanić
Location: Vodnjan (Istria), Croatia
Packaging Contents: Extra virgin olive oil
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Glass, paper label
Printing Process: Offset, Foil stamping

BRIST Olive is a family owned brand of extra virgin olive oils, all domestically produced from traditionally native olive varieties. Olive oil is their deep passion, with their mission being to share their knowledge and experience about this wonderful product in an accessible, understandable and warm way.

The Brist olive groves are located in Vodnjan, Istria (declared the world’s best olive oil region since 2015 by the renowned world olive oil guide Flos Olei). Istria’s unique microclimate, along with the family’s dedication to their craft, allows the company to create exclusive olive oils of extraordinary quality.

Presently, Brist produces a range of five extra virgin olive oils: Delicato, Sta Margherita, Intenso, Oleum and Exclusive Selection.

The packaging redesign objectives were to visualize and express the values and soul/ethos of the brand, to create an image that would be attractive and recognizable and that stands out from its competitors.
With this new design we have achieved that each and every oil tells its own story. By differentiating the orientation of olive leaf patterns, each oil tells the story of its distinguishing taste characteristics and its relationship to the olive grove, the history, the people who created it, and their ethos.

The only demand from the client was to maintain a link to the previous labels. So we maintained the specific colors from the old labels, as existing customers mostly remembered oils by them (the yellow, green, pink oil…)

Delicato is the horizontal leaf; mild, understated, balanced and subtle. Inspired by the sea and magical sunsets seen from the grove.

Sta Margherita is a chapel from the 12th century, nestled deep in the family groves, a space that inspires. The Sta Margherita olive oil is the perfect harmony of mild and intense flavours, expressed through both horizontal and vertical elements.

The strong flavours of Intenso are inspired by Vodnjan and its history; from Illyrian tribes, to Romans, to Venetians. The vertical element is the tower on the hill, and the strength of the Istrian people.

Oleum is an oil of mixed varieties. Its tastes and aromas are nature’s choice, unique to each harvest year. Its elements are random, balanced by nature.

Exclusive Selection oil is inspired by centennial trees. This pattern is contemporary yet with a feel of baroque style, a gesture towards history, tradition and time. The bottle design is distinguished by all elements being finished in gold hot-stamping.

The process of the highest quality olive oil production is based on a balance between a respect for nature, the art of oil blending and the use of cutting edge technology. We used different leaf orientations on the labels to communicate each oil’s uniqueness and its characteristics. Also indicated on each label is whether the oil is a single variety, blend or of mixed olive varieties.

The golden dots (hot stamping) representing olives are a reflection of the technology itself, controlled conditions and the consistency of production and bottling.

Throughout all labels of the same volume, the dots are always placed in the same order and in the same position. This furthermore reduced the cost of the label production, as the number of clichés was reduced to one per volume. Exclusive Selection is an exception to this in that it was decided with the client to distinguish this label by the total usage of gold hot-stamping and a separate cliché.