Coley Porter Bell gives Olmeca tequila an ‘injection of energy and intrigue’
Coley Porter Bell has redesigned the packaging for Olmeca Tequila, aiming to better reflect the brand’s Mexican heritage.
The consultancy has previously redesigned packaging for Olmeca’s premium brand Olmeca Altos, and was appointed having worked with parent company Pernod Ricard on many previous projects including a new identity for Jameson in 2010.
The new bottles retain the incumbent square-shaped structural design, but have a new ‘orange peel’ texture, which Coley Porter Bell says works with a ‘hammered-esque glass to generate a more contemporary feel’.
Coley Porter Bell creative director Stuart Humm says the consultancy was keen to retain the brand’s distinctive look.
‘It can be tempting to contemporise by stripping everything back and becoming minimal but this was the last thing we wanted to do with Olmeca. It has real character and maintaining this was vital’, he says.
‘When you’ve got a brand with a very rich visual language you want to enhance that, so we added the embossing and the detail’.
The Olmec head icon, redrawn by Chris Mitchell for the new bottles, is given more prominence with the new designs. Coley Porter Bell also redrew the logo, giving it ‘a more contemporary, simplified’ look.
Humm says, ‘The mark before felt a little bit too naïve. Some of the feedback was that it was a bit cartoon-like, so we wanted to make it feel more credible and become something that would live beyond the packaging design’.
The bottles will now feature a new illustration of the Tahona stone, which is used to crush the agave plant to make the tequila; the Master Distiller Jesus Hernandez’s signature, aiming to enhance the brand’s feeling of quality, and the agave plant watermark.
The redesigned label uses ‘fresher, brighter colours with more contrast and movement, injecting energy and intrigue’, says Coley Porter Bell.
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I hope I’m not the first to say that I actually prefer the old design. It looks more authentic and has bags more personality.
The new bottle glass looks cheap, and the new label appears too small. The label is full of the old drinks clichés of signatures and medals, and leaf illustrations that designers seem to think have to be on all drinks packaging. The simpler Olmec head on the old label has much more personality than Mitchell’s re-draw as well.
It never was broke – thus no need to have ‘fixed’ it.
Have to agree with Harrison’s comment, I much prefer the old head icon, it feels more authentic and quirky.
The only thing I think that has improved is the edit to the bottle shapes, I think the mottling on the old bottle was very old fashioned, and the new pattern down the side is very nice.
Another vote for the old design. New design is abig step backwards!
It just struck me what the ‘New’ head icon reminds me of… The Thing from the Fantastic 4!
Forget an injection of intrigue and mystery… more like an injection of design waffle from Perfect Curve! Yay!