The modernisation and standardisation of of iconic products

Valio mulled wines – design renewal

A packaging design is kicked off by figuring out the current working parts of the package. Never change what already works. Especially the market leader should make any changes in packaging very carefully.

A strategically made brand lasts time. The better you plan out your branding at first, the smaller the changes you need to make to improve and build on it later.

Every visual identity will eventually need some updating. Valio is a great example of a company, which creates iconic brands and skillfully builds on them long-term.

In the case of a packaging renewal we start by figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of the current packaging. After that it’s easy to change the correct things.

The vintage artwork of the mulled wines with their steaming mugs was a good element that we wanted to keep
Outi Oravainen
DesignCompany

With the packaging renewal Hehku was also brought to the Valio mulled wine -series

Plenty of existing, a pinch of new

Our job in this visual identity renewal was to unify the existing well thought-out brand elements to make the big picture look good. The series needed to be more connected and christmas fresh. The existing well-working colour coding and the vintage artwork was to be left untouched. The upper part of the packages got a snowy shine. A white christmas is something we all hope for.

The technical features of the packaging and printing should be taken into account already when startin the project to avoid any unnecessary expenses.

These cardboard liquid packages are a completely different game. When printing these, you can easily bump into restrictions that the packaging designer has to be aware of. There’s usually a limited number of printing colours, so you can’t design the elements with any colour you want. Only certain types of illustrations can be duplicated and still look good

It’s a huge privilege that I’ve had a chance to be a part of the Valio team for six years. With good co-operation and respect we get the best results.

The mulled wine mug was brought to it’s well-deserved leading role in the new designs.

We got some Christmas luxury feel to the packages with a pinch of gold

In every product of the series the same well thought-out elements are repeated, so the set stands out on the store shelves.

Hehku was also standardised to look the same as the other mulled wines.

Valio is the market leader in all key dairy product groups in Finland and is one of the largest companies in Finland. Net sales in 2019 were EUR 1.8 billion. Valio is Finland’s biggest food exporter. Valio products are found globally in some 60 countries and it has subsidiaries in Sweden, Russia the Baltics, USA and China.