From brand analysis to label printing: the Amaro del Ferdy

25 May, 2022 25 May, 2022

- Carolina Artuffo

We are researchers before being designer: this is how the Santaniello Design Studio team defines itself. Digging into the past and predicting the future is the key to create a unique and successful label.

The Santaniello Design Studio is specialized in identity and packaging design. It was founded in Bergamo by the talented and ambitious Salvatore. In recent years the team has grown in size, skills and ambitions leading to the birth of some pieces of art. We had the pleasure to interview them and talk about the Amaro del Ferdy project, that saw us as a label printing partner. Take a look at their projects at the following link: https://salvatoresantaniello.it/#.

1. Describe your job. What do you do, what are your peculiarities and your creative approach on a new project.

We take care of the brand identity and packaging design and our studio is in Bergamo. We like to define ourselves researchers before being designer: We collect data, visit places and interview people, digging into the past or trying to predict future scenarios in search of an object or thought, which fully represents, with its uniqueness, the essence of a product. Our exploration is not only about concepts but also techniques: new materials and inks are only a small part of what transform a simple label printing and packaging an emotional object.

2. Describe the project Amaro del Ferdy. Tell us a little bit about the company you worked for and the product you dressed.

Agriturismo Ferdy (link: https://www.agriturismoferdy.com/en) is a family-business that aims to enhance mountain raw materials and local traditions from the kitchen side to the online shop. What makes them unique is the wise use of spontaneous herbs, which we find in the dishes cooked by the Chef, in the wellness area through essential oil treatments or which they store in precious jars on the boutique shelves. It is precisely from the mix of these spontaneous herbs, harvested by hand in the woods of the Brembana Valley, that Amaro del Ferdy was born. The production is very limited and the variety of herbs depends on availability of the nature: each infusion brings with it nuances that express the diversity and evolution of spontaneity.

3. Describe the creative process. How did you get to the final label? From the initial brief to the last word of the customer, what were their requests and goals?

The desire of the Ferdy family was to convey the dedication and effort of collecting these non-cultivated and spontaneus herbs. The goal we set ourselves was to summarize in an essential packaging the authenticity of this product and the mountains as a lifestyle.

What could be more authentic than a photograph?

The goat you see in the photo is an Orobic goat, an autochthonous breed, that climbs the rocks, looking for the best herbs: exactly like the oldest members of Ferdy family has done for generations.

Each botanical brings some secrets, about its uses in the kitchen or as medicaments. Achillea, Genziana, Angelica, Menta, Timo: we explained them in a precious recipe book attached to the approximately 600 bottles produced each year.

4. Describe your feelings when you saw the finished project. Did the end product reflect your idea? Do the chosen finishings reflect what you imagined?

While holding the bottle I first felt like an apothecary with its own made concoction. Its shape, the wooden detail and a textured paper fot the label printing helped us achieve the “ wild” effect we were looking for.