Best Package Redesign

Alexander Hill range

Photo: The team at Design Energy (left-right) Bella Goodwin-Galea, Rose Williams, Trish Dunstone and Lucas Shaw

Design Energy, the Melbourne team behind the label redesign of Alexander Hill say they are rapt at the reception of the new label.

“Not only are we happy with the result, and we’re proud of the result, but most importantly, the client has benefited from this design in building their suite of brands as well,” said creative director Trish Dunstone.

Redesigning a label can be challenging when the brief is limited to typography, but Design Energy aimed to incorporate story-telling in their design.

“We implemented the actual hill into the base of the label, which is something that’s not immediately obvious. We love those thoughts, where the consumer all of a sudden goes, ‘Oh, I see what they’ve done’,” said Dunstone.

“We worked with the name in a much more contemporary and modern way without [it] looking like the same old vineyard label from yesteryear.”

Dunstone also said that shelf impact was not just limited to how the label looks, but how it feels.

 

“If there’s enough impact on the shelf, the consumer will pick it up, and they’ll explore the finishes – they’ll want to feel it and turn it. Once you’ve got them there, then they’ve already decided to purchase.”

 

Dunstone said the goal with this design was to over-deliver on price. “It’s always going to look like it’s worth more than its retail price,” she said of the new label. “We want the consumer [to be] proud to put it on the table.”

“We’ve been quite strategic about where the money is best spent for the client, so it’s quite a simple production. All of the labels have a common foil. And basically, the only thing that changes on each label is the varietal. By doing that, we’ve been able to use better quality stock, and it’s also enabled the client to spend money on branded caps. So, again, we’ve been very mindful about what sort of price point this is, and how the client’s money can be best spent.”

 

Dunstone said that often clients are just looking to “tweak” their existing design. “We always get ‘we want an evolution, not a revolution,’ but the time and money they invest in an evolution is a sort of false economy in most cases.”

 

Of the client’s response, Dunestone said “their sales have tripled. And they’ve been able to get into retailers and distributors that they haven’t been able to get into before.

“So we’re really proud of it, to build our portfolio as well, and show clients that we’re not just about design, we’re about results.”