From iceberg bottle sketch to award winning bottle
The striking Absolut Facet bottle has been awarded the best drinks, primary pack at this year’s Luxury Packaging Awards. This unique bottle has achieved outstanding innovation in glass packaging with a new blue colour and striking asymmetric shape.
Initially Absolut gave Ardagh a 2D sketch of a blue iceberg bottle’ as part of the brief. The challenge was to create this in glass. The brief was clear: to achieve this effect and recreate the precise colour, every time, in the production of two and a half million bottles. The challenge was highly technical - balancing dimensions, volume, design and forming.
The pack meets the brief beautifully, introducing a consistent new colour and intricately detailed, multifaceted shape in each bottle. Each facet is individually designed, cut and carefully arranged to fit together like a 3D puzzle. This has resulted in the creation of a truly unique, non-repetitive pattern around the bottle. The angles between the facets were made as sharp as possible, and they point in different directions to maximises the reflection of light.
As the pattern affects the bottle volume, this process took the glass designers considerable time and care to get it right. This involved 3D modelling of the three different bottle sizes using CREO software; a painstaking process which took over a month.
It wasn’t possible to keep the same size of the facets as the original sketch because this reduced the bottle volume too much. Instead, the facets were made smaller. This retained a sufficiently large surface area to each facet, while ensuring they would reflect and bounce light around, to stand out on a shelf.
The judges commented:
“The glass is not an obvious smooth-sided glass container and the colour/distribution combination makes it very eye-catching, especially in the context of travel retail.
“[The] creative intention is very clear and beautifully executed. A striking design which plays to the brand’s values very well. The branding is understated and confident, allowing the iconic silhouette to do the talking.”
Notes
- Ardagh Group is a global leader in glass and metal packaging solutions, producing packaging for most of the world's leading food, beverage and consumer care brands. They operate 110 facilities in 22 countries, employ over 23,000 people and have global sales exceeding US$8.8 bn/Eur€7.9 bn. www.ardaghgroup.com
- Luxury Packaging Awards is an annual event that take place in London. www.luxurypackagingawards.com
