Six unmissable trends in the world of beverage packaging design for this year

Just like every other part of the vast world of design, consumer packaging also needs to be able to talk about itself and its story. In fact, it should know how to communicate about its products to a specific target market, by emphasising its own brand’s value proposition. But in the highly competitive landscape of premium spirits, where offerings grow from week to week, standing out from the crowd is becoming harder than ever.

In recent years, this tendency toward cut-throat competitiveness has pushed the brands operating in this specific niche to experiment with many innovative approaches to beverage packing design – both in terms of aesthetic appeal and function. And 2020 is showing fascinating trends even in this direction.

Here are this year’s six popular trends and we expect they’ll continue to dominate the sector well into 2021.

1. Metamorphosis

As the title suggests, metamorphosis is the process where design elements are transformed into something new. By creating an optical illusion to catch the eye, it draws consumers in to look at the more complex packaging details.

This compelling artistic trend is at the cutting edge – particularly in the world of beverage packaging design – and is a unique and very important element that works well. Its aim is to convey specific types of brand message.

The Seedlip brand, for example, has used an illustration of a metamorphosis symbol on its label. Since this company is well-known for its alcohol-free and low alcohol distillates, we can confirm that the transformation message works well with this type of product – usually alcoholic but in this case its nature has been changed.

These transformational values can be seen in every single bottle, both in its contents and its packaging. Besides its special carefully illustrated label, we find an attractively curved, transparent bottle which highlights every tint and shade of the liquid combined with a closure, SCR Aluminium by Tapì, that expresses this brand’s founding principles of simplicity and love for nature.

2. Details and sophistication

Research has shown that today consumers drink less, but better quality. This is great news for companies that produce premium spirits, as they are constantly researching new ideas to meet the demands of an ever-changing market.

Just for this reason, packaging needs to be able to convey the value of its contents, especially to differentiate them with the rest of the market’s products. This is why there is a consistent move towards unique, luxury packaging. This significant trend brings with it packaging that is more luxurious, attractive, with more intense compositions rich in detail. Every single element that makes up the packaging needs to be moving in this direction.

At Tapì, we think of ourselves as pioneers in the luxury closure sector. It’s not by chance that over the last few months we have developed a new concept based on cutting-edge materials, such as exotic wood and stone-effect ceramic. And we’re following the sustainability trend by creating new production processes based on recovering waste products to make luxurious, eco-friendly closures.

3. Retro and futurist

The words retro and futurist, when put together, sound like a contradiction in terms. But the combination of design elements that echo the past with innovative products can work really well together.

This is just so for Tapì’s Speakeasy range of closures, inspired by the prohibition era of the 1920s. A Speakeasy closure can be a valid starting point for packaging development, from the viewpoint of artisan-style premium spirits. It combines a futuristic design with a touch of vintage flair that results in an extraordinary design to captivate consumers.

4. Sustainability

The next five years will be decisive in understanding the direction that the current climate emergency will take. The behaviours people adopt will be key and awareness about making more sustainable choices for the environment will be critical, both on the part of businesses and consumers. 

Over the last few months, all the operational businesses in the world of beverage packaging design have been busy researching eco-friendly and plastic-free alternatives. In the near future, we expect even more exploration into eco-friendly materials to create easily recyclable packaging as well as innovative production processes, while still maintaining the quality and aesthetic appeal required by the premium and super-premium spirits sector. These concepts have led to the creation of closures – and closure ranges – such as Duo, Mekano and Abor.

5. Transparent packaging

Using transparent bottles so that the product’s colour can be shown off, is a trend that is already extremely popular in the beauty and skin-care sector. We expect a strong surge in this trend during this year, even in food and drink packaging. It’s a winning idea that lets the brand adopt a more minimal approach to their packaging design processes. But it also allows them to put the product at the centre of the customer experience without compromising on its visual impact.

6. Well-structured layout

This trend in beverage packaging design focusses on the way the typography chosen by a brand can be used on a much broader level.

The text is generally made up of a variety of unique, captivating character combinations, separated by clear lines that divide up the space, so it feels clean and balanced, making it easy to read. This approach also gives a sense of structure, which consumers enjoy and allows designers a more minimalist approach to the creation of packaging in its entirety.

On a final note

The items we have included in this list are some of the more common trends for 2020 in the world of beverage packaging design.

If you have a product to launch onto the market – or one to revamp – get in touch for more information about our closures. We, at Tapì, are specialists in the production of T closures for the premium and super-premium sectors. Little jewels to enhance any product they seal.

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A one-to-one with the illustrator, Alfred Basha, to explore his style and background

Alfred Basha is an illustrator with a deeply dreamlike perspective who takes his inspiration from wild nature for most of his designs. He has been working with the beverage sector for some time, including some key international collaborative work.

Precisely for this reason, we decided to get to know him better by asking him a few questions about his work.

First of all, thank you for agreeing to do this interview. Who is Alfred? Can you tell the Tapì readers something about yourself?

“My name is Alfred Basha and I was born in 1990, in Kruje. It’s a mountain village steeped in history about 40 km, or 25 miles, from Tirana. I came to Italy with my parents in 2002, when I was 12. And this is where we made our new lives.

I’ve always had a huge passion for design. And because of this, I got a degree in Industrial Product Design from the IUAV University in Venice. Shortly after that I started work in the field, but unfortunately, I realised that it wasn’t really what I really wanted to do with my life.

My life as an illustrator started by chance and while I was at university. Back then I used to make hand-printed t-shirts that I’d designed. And I’d sell them to my friends for a nominal amount to cover my costs. Over time demand began to grow and I started to sell them and ship them to retailers across Italy. That was how Alfred Basha was created – a casual t-shirt brand made with my designs.

After I opened my Instagram page to promote my work, I got an email from the team that run the software platform asking me for an interview to include with others they’d done with emerging artists. It certainly was the breakthrough that I’d been waiting for. Although I’m only self-taught, I got 13,000 more followers overnight. People who were really interested in my drawings and my interpretation. This let me create a space in the art world and it was the springboard for everything that’s happened since.

I am currently on the web, with my own website, and on Instagram – that brought me so much good fortune – and Pinterest. This is where I get the majority of my requests for work from the beverage world.”

When did you get involved in the beverage world? And why? What was your first commission for the sector and what else have you or are you currently working on?

“My first piece of work in the beverage sector was about 3 years ago, in 2017. The multinational Boon Rawd Brewery from Thailand that’s famous for its Shinga beer contacted me as it was about to launch Snowy Weizen. It’s an innovative wheat beer in its market segment and they wanted one of my illustrations to print on the can. After some careful discussion, they chose an image of a bear – one of my most well-known and most-liked designs. This experience opened up a new world for me and more work requests came in. I’ve done work for some wine producers from the Napa Valley, in California for some specific customisations on their products. And I’ve worked with other wine companies and with Hine, one of the oldest Cognac producers. I’m currently developing a project that’s demanding and inspiring – it’s the coordination and design for the production of labels for a new range of alcohol-free distillates for a brand in California.

When you take on a new project, what are the different phases? From the brief to the finished article.

“The phases are quite linear and most often I follow a specific process. Firstly, it’s so important to have a dialogue with the customer with the aim of defining a brief covering the key points as well as understanding exactly what they need for the finished product.

Once I’ve received the keywords to focus on, I begin by doing some online and offline research – mostly in vintage illustrated books. This helps me to find so much more inspiration to get on with the work. When I’ve got an idea, I begin making some sketches that I’ll then take to the customer. We then single out the sketch that I’ll develop to finish the design and make the final illustration by adding in all the details.”

Most of your illustrations are linked to wild nature – what does that mean to you?

“Really, wild nature is the direction I wanted to take on Instagram to make a name for myself. As I said earlier, I’m self-taught and I like to experiment and move towards various styles and techniques. That way I can be as versatile as possible, and I can create on paper exactly what the customer is looking for. And it’s just for this reason that I’m thinking of redesigning my website to show off my versatility – or at least part of it.

The idea of showing only images connected to nature on Instagram came from my desire to get myself into a specific world. With my Albanian roots and coming from a mountainous landscape, I sometimes feel the instinct to depict the place where I was born and the animals that live there. Bears, hawks and wolves – all of them wild, free and owe nothing to anyone. What I love about them is that they’re not slaves to life and the system we inhabit. When I draw these images on paper, for me it means hurling myself into another world that represents absolute freedom.”

If you could take on a new collaborative work in the beverage world, which product would you like to experiment with? And why?

“I’d like to have look at the world of spirits. It’s a context that’s very similar to the one I am working in, in terms of creativity, stylistic research and product storytelling. Spirits have a strong taste, a bit like nature, and for me that’d be a real challenge.

Going into the detail, I have always wanted to work alongside a brand to develop images for a liqueur or a grassy or spiced bitter drink. Something with deep flavours that marry well with my passion and nature.”

 

As Tapì is part of the food supply chain, we must keep going. This is how we are dealing with the state of emergency linked to Novel Coronavirus

It’s tough, inevitably tough – and pointless to deny it. There’s the daily glimmer of hope offered by the number of new infections reported by the Italian Civil Protection Agency in their 6pm national address. We always hope that the number of new COVID-19 cases has reduced, as well as the number of deaths caused by this invisible enemy that’s being fought by our nation with all its might.

Then, there’s you, our Customers, who call us every day to find out how things stand. We are touched by your concern for us and we thank you so much for your support.

The news bulletins, newspapers and social networks talk about companies and businesses in crisis, about Italy and its national brand and who knows when it might be re-established at this difficult time. But wait, it’s not just the Novel Coronavirus that bringing us to our knees, it’s everything related to it.

Before the virus spread through Europe and across the world, we, like China, were singled out as ‘spreaders’ and the Made in Italy brand has lost what gave it its power and iconic appeal. Now we are all part of this disaster as the virus has not stopped after spreading through Italy and is now widespread across the globe.

A few days after the media ‘bomb’ exploded but before the implementation of the restrictive regulations for businesses and social distancing, within the Tapì Group we had decided to protect our employees and workers. These people are our lifeblood and they help us to grow day by day and they ensure customer satisfaction. 

Consequently, we have implemented remote working for all employees who work in offices to ensure continuity of order management, request response and usual business administration. 

For our production teams, which must continue working as they are part of the food supply chain, we have provided protective masks, single-use gloves and disinfectant gel for hands and body. With the aim of containing the spread of the virus, we also measure each person’s body temperature every day as they enter our sites. And lastly, we have taken the decision to implement a 24-hour shift pattern to reduce the number of people present on our sites to the absolute minimum.

This virus is crushing us as a nation, but we will not break. For our part, we are doing everything humanly possible to continue to offer our best products and services, while fully adhering to the government’s regulations related to workers’ safety.

However, we want to thank all of you for the warmth and support that you have expressed over the last month. We shall not forget it. *

Roberto Casini – CEO, Tapì Group

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We are sponsors of this year’s World Spirits Conference in London – a discussion forum dedicated to the challenges facing the spirits market

The World Spirits Conference Europe 2020 will be held in the historic location of the Honourable Artillery Company. This event will gather together international leaders in the sector to discuss the commercial opportunities and global challenges facing the industry.

From production to packaging design, not forgetting marketing and sales management. Every single detail of the spirits market supply chain will be analysed, along with the upcoming trends driven by a sector in constant flux.

Tapì, as an event sponsor, will also take part in the World Spirits Conference 2020 along with high-profile global market players. An exciting opportunity to discuss and pick up useful knowledge to predict packaging design trends in the near future.

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Whisky Live London 2020 is back – a unique experience in an exceptional setting

This year we are sponsors of Whisky Live 2020 – the world’s premier whisky tasting show. Masterclasses and smaller events dedicated to visitors from around the world will take place in the stunning surroundings of the Honourable Artillery Company on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 March.

Producers from various countries will come together to showcase their rare and distinctive whiskies to a select audience. There will be producers from Spain, the USA, Australia, Taiwan, Japan and, of course, Ireland and Scotland – all providing an exclusive sensory experience dedicated to enthusiasts of the vast world of whisky.

We, at the Tapì group, are sponsors of the event to be held at the same time as the World Spirits Conference. This will be a really exciting opportunity for us to meet new prominent players in the premium whisky production market.

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Knowledge and discussion – keywords for Together on top, the third Tapì Global Meeting

Together on top, the third Tapì Global Meeting, was a valuable and heart-felt opportunity for all of us to meet colleagues. It’s important to bring people together when the business is so large and spread globally across many countries. For this reason, it’s valuable to meet up once a year at an official event that lets us plan our company’s future together.

This year we tackled many, varied issues in the delightful Chateau de Cognac, France. We discussed the challenges we are facing, and we shared our knowledge, as well as everyday experiences in how we can reach to top of the market together. We also gave a warm welcome to all the Les Bouchages Delage team, which recently became part of our great Tapì family. And once again we discussed the trends we needed to negotiate and predict the demands of a constantly changing market.

These three days saw a huge amount of collaboration and interaction, supporting the 2020 maxim of: Together on top!

The journey Tapì is undertaking as a business and sustainable closure manufacturer is increasingly eco-friendly.  This is how the 3Rs of sustainability are influencing the world of packaging design

As many research studies have shown, various brands are now moving towards more ethical choices when it comes to the environment. A few years ago, using green and recycled materials in sustainable packaging was perceived as a poor-quality product in the popular imagination, but today it’s a genuine trend across all sectors.

Consumer expectations are the drivers behind this change in perception. Millennials are chiefly responsible as they tend to choose their brands based on social engagement criteria. And more than 66% of customers are willing to pay more for eco-friendly products.

These statistics tell us that researching sustainable solutions has become an important issue. And meeting the continuously evolving demands of current and potential clients even applies in the beverage market.

Packaging trends: innovative materials and sustainable production processes

Until a while ago, packaging consisted of a collection of barely sustainable items. But more recently, the 3Rs of sustainability model has been under way – a green-thinking concept based on three key words, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The aim of this philosophy is to raise awareness, prevent waste and conserve natural resources.

In the last few years, at Tapì, we have adopted this philosophy to bring improvements to our production processes and to design new sustainable closures to enable the brands that use them to relate their own values.

Reduce

The concept that the first R, Reduce, is founded on is to reduce the amount we produce and consume.

If there’s less wastage, then there’s less to recycle or re-use.

And at Tapì we are working on the basis of this principle. Through even greater commitment to innovative solution research, we are reducing and completely eliminating waste, by using fewer materials that have a negative impact on the surrounding environment.

Reuse

The second R, Reuse, is based on the reuse of components and on giving them new life, or even using them in a different way to the one they were designed for.

We should be trying to create today’s packaging using components and materials which can be re-used over and over again.

Recycle

The third R is for Recycling. This is about the genuine transformation of an asset into a new raw material, that can be shaped into new objects. There really are very few materials that cannot be recycled.

We need to learn which products can be recycled and which ones can’t. Making sure to choose raw materials which can be recycled can be a giant step towards efficient recycling.

Tapì case studies

On this basis, at Tapì, we are launching the Rethink process with the gradual alteration of the company’s vision and by offering innovative, sustainable solutions in packaging design. As a result, our R&D team has developed new products such as Abor and Devin, both based on the Reuse and Reduce concepts. We also have Monoblocco and Duo – entirely recyclable – and Mekano that, as well as being recyclable, helps to prevent waste as it can be used as a solution in many closure contexts.

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The T-disc closure is part of Tapì’s Collection range, bringing together all the closures that represent the meeting point of the opposing values of tradition and innovation. The detailed description of T-disc is a bar-top closure, with a head and leg in synthetic material that’s entirely customisable.

There are countless customisations that can be made to the head in terms of colour, debossing, embossing and metallic finishes. T-disc, with its traditional values redesigned with a modern interpretation, has already been selected by tens of Tapì customers for their most prestigious spirits. A simple yet confident style to ensure optimum efficiency and functionality.

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From 3 to 5 December, we were in Cognac, France, at the VS Pack exhibition.This key event took place at the exhibition park and was a real Innovation Show for everything related to packaging and technologies specific to the Spirits & Wine industry.

The fourth edition of the SPIRI PACK CREDIT AGRICOLE award was presented at the event. The award is dedicated to the best innovators from the various exhibitors in the packaging world. The candidates’ innovations were judged by a jury of professionals entrusted with three special awards based on specific criteria, such as innovative aspects, design, commercial impact and eco-friendliness.

Overall, we can report that it was an engaging tenth edition full of new ideas. For us at Tapì, we successfully presented our sustainable projects and our Signature range of closures.

Our special thanks go to all of you who visited us at our stand.

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Diageo recently announced its latest limited edition for one of its brands: George Dickel Bottled in Bond. Bold and balanced, this 13-year-old whisky has its roots in traditional, authentic values, reflecting Cascade Hollow Distilling Company’s commitment to the production of the highest quality whisky.

George Dickel Bottled in Bond can be drunk neat, with ice or as a delectable cocktail. It’s a versatile Tennessee whisky, that equally needed a closure to accent its value. For this reason, the brand chose T-Wood, finished in black, from the Tapì range.

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