Agency: Backbone Branding
Creative Director/ Design Idea: Stepan Azaryan
Brand Strategist: Lusie Grigoryan
Art Director/ Illustrator: Mariam Stepanyan
Project Manager: Marianna Atshemyan
Graphic Designer: Stepan Azaryan
Motion designer: Sahak Zarbabyan
Content Writer: Grace Jerejian
Location: Armenia
Project Type: Produced
Product Launch Location: Armenia
Packaging Contents: wine
Packaging Substrate / Materials: ceramic, wood, paper

The Brief
As a staple element in the Ancient times, wine has been an essential companion to the great thinkers and philosophers.

As a matter of fact, “Symposium” was the name of the intellectual gatherings where the philosophers of Ancient Greece would have long and profound discussions fueled by the consumption of generous amounts of wine.

Therefore, for this new brand of wine, we wanted to evoke the concept of deep thinking embodied by the person of the philosopher.

This is an invitation for the contemporary consumer of wine to go on a journey of deep thinking.

The Result
Our design portrays the face of the Ancient time philosopher on the paper packaging that envelopes our wine container.
The carefully hand-drawn, black and white illustration shows the face of our inspirational thinker just as it is familiarly represented to us on old Hellenic statues.

Through our design, we wanted to travel inside the mind of the philosopher. Our goal was to explore the journey that a thinker goes through during the development process of a thought.

Hence, we wanted to depict and visualize the different stages of the evolution of an idea. These consecutive steps during which the idea develops and comes to maturity are visually exteriorized through expressions and emotions on the thinker’s face.

In order to portray these steps on our packaging, we have picked several types of word graphics that show the thinking process which takes place inside the mind of the philosopher and which are expressed on his face though a wide array of expressions.

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At first, fragments of thoughts and sharp questions arise in one’s mind, then they gradually develop and increase, causing accumulations of thoughts, later these accumulated thoughts turn into noise, and at a final stage the mind begins to get clearer, and as a result only one or few essential questions remain.

Once this layer of paper packaging is taken out, it reveals underneath a jug made out of ceramic that is a nod to the antique clay jugs used in Ancient Greece for wine.

Our wine jugs are divided into gold and white. White is the soul, gold is the material. The questions raised by the philosopher cross these boundaries during their journey from the materialistic to the spiritual.
We have deliberately selected the three most frequently used and fundamental questions (where, why, what) to showcase on the wooden lid.

These words are the ignition keys which activate deep topics and raise questions.

We have named the brand “Φ I L O S O Φ” as a tribute to the man who appreciates the value of wisdom. Visually, the name logo is carved on the clay bottle as the letters are arranged all around the periphery of the bottle in a circular shape.

Therefore it ends and starts with the greek letter “Φ” of the word “ΦilosoΦ”.

We opted for this look in order to represent the circular motion that depicts the recurring cycle of thoughts.

Given all the chaos that goes on inside one’s mind, we wanted this brand of wine to transfer a specific message to its consumers. To tell them to slow down, take a break from the overwhelming everyday life and take a moment to reflect.

This is an invitation to explore and look through the inner folds of their mind in order to find answers within themselves.

Because after all, let us always remember the famous words that the philosopher has said: “I think therefore I exist”.