I wanted to give it a Florida vibe without getting too cheesy.
– Grant Gunderson, Dunn&Co.
When designing the packaging for the Old St. Pete craft line by St. Petersburg Distillery, Dunn&Co.’s Grant Gunderson had one thing in mind: Florida sunshine. “I wanted to capture the spirit of the Sunshine City in the 1900s,” he says. Each spirit — rum & spice, gin, whisky and vodka — has a custom recipe neck tag and custom shipping carton with old postcards of iconic spots in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the distillery is based.
The highlight of the label is the embossing and foil stamping, particularly the foil sunrays. “It really helps assist in the story of this old-timey, classic sun character,” Gunderson says. Gunderson also wanted to tie in other Florida icons as much as possible without taking away from the emphasis on the sun. The border of the label is made up of elements like abstract palm trees and seashells but mixed with some traditional ornate elements to keep it abstract.
Digital printing enabled the design team to include variable data such as craft information with batch and bottle number on the bottom strip of each label. The label was printed on Avery Dennison Fasson Eggshell Felt 70 lb. Text using CMYK, while the neck tag, capsule and carton utilized Pantone colors, creating an unexpected challenge for Gunderson. “I realized sometimes it’s very difficult to match Pantone colors to CMYK when you don’t plan ahead,” he says. “So planning ahead is a must.”
