ELA

Design: Maria Luisa Almeida
Location: Brazil
Project Type: Concept
Packaging Contents: Cachaça
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Glass bottle

ELA is a brand that aims to exalt the cachaça as the important Brazilian cultural property that it is. Having women producers and/or frequent cachaça’s consumers who value local art as its target audience, ELA wants to be a product that provides a great emotional connection. To be effective, the brand had to distance itself from the common aesthetics of other cachaça’s brands, maintaining the traditionality, admiration for the territory and culture of the beverage production.

So, in order to create this narrative, the brand draws a lot of inspiration from local crafts, such as the ceramics of the Jequitinhonha. Vale do Jequitinhonha, located in the north of the state of Minas Gerais, is recognized as one of the most creative places in Brazil, where ceramics are a tradition maintained for generations. Ceramics are becoming more and more elaborate, gaining new contours and applications, incorporating the potency of the region’s soil oxides capable of giving unique, vibrant and cheerful colors to natural pieces.

In addition, one of the brand’s concerns is to guarantee the reuse of the bottles. So, the bottle was designed to fit into consumers’ homes, either as a cachaça collection or as part of the decoration.

The visual identity was developed so that it could convey elegance, regionality and was also unique, cozy and vibrant. The logo has curved shapes to refer to handcrafted work, however, it remains geometric so as not to lose its elegance. The bottle is painted with a ceramic finish and vernacular curves. The colors refer to the ceramics of the jequitinhonha and are vibrant and unique.