Package Design - January/February 2013 - 8

SNAPSHOTS

Home Sweet Circus
Italian food brand
gets complete
overhaul with homage
to founder’s roots.

asa Gusto, Italian food purveyor, sets sights on introducing packaging to the market that will
make an impact. With 70 Italian
food related products in the brand
range, this design project presented
a colossal challenge. Australian
design firm The Creative Method
(www.thecreativemethod.com) tackled the extensive project with gusto.
The Italian company established
by a father and son team is set on
providing quality food products that
reflect the unique variety of Italy.
Circus themed illustrations are channeled in the packaging design as the creator’s father travelled throughout Italy when in his youth following the
circus. “The story/history created a fantastic launching
pad for the creative,” says The Creative Method’s Cat
Spinelli. “We thought that it was such a lovely story about
his travels but it wasn’t actually in the original brief, and
we had to dig around for it and push the client harder for
something that we could build from.”
The Creative Method found traditional Italian illustrations and commissioned illustrator Gerad Taylor
(www.geradtaylor.com) through The Drawing Book Studios (www.drawingbook.com.au) “to bring new characters and poses to life,” says Spinelli. The extensive
lineup of packaging “needed to look appealing and
reflect quality but also tell a story about the Italian origins,” continues Spinelli. After the brief was provided to
Taylor, he set forth performing online research to ensure
that the rendering style and tone was correct for the
illustrations. When describing the illustrations, Taylor
states, “The characters were quite specific, a juggler, a
bodybuilder and then the circus ringleader and dancer.
They needed to have a quite defined look and personality appropriate to their characters.”
The penne packaging features a mustached man juggling penne, with the help of die-cuts on paperboard used
to reveal the actual pasta shells housed inside the packaging. The same juggler is present in the canned section as

january/february 2013

well, juggling various beans such as mixed beans, red kidney, borlotti and cannellini. Extra virgin olive oil is housed
in a 4-L tin and features the ringleader alongside a dancer,
with a red and white striped big top in the background. A
swimsuit clad bodybuilder is utilized for several packages
including the mineral water label. The infamous circus
elephant adorned with garb stands atop a “ball,” a red
tomato in canned variety labels.
Taylor explains that the “illustrations were intended
to be more generic to cover a range of products.” This
enabled the illustrations to be used throughout the
diverse product lineup, which includes liquids, solids,
fragile and sturdy consumables. But the juggler character is anything but generic. It’s almost a self portrait
based on a photo of the illustrator.
Reflecting on collaborating on the Casa Gusto project with The Creative Method, Taylor notes that, “Every
now and then as an illustrator a real peach of an assignment comes along that is a pleasure to work on and this
was one of those instances!” Taylor was “impressed by
the integration of my work into the overall package
designs by The Creative Method. Their work took what I
had done and lifted it to another level,” adding elements
such as the integration of die-cuts and the ability to
reuse a handful of illustrations in such a variety of products all the while making them appear specific to each
item sets their designs apart.

Package Design - January/February 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Package Design - January/February 2013