MILAN, ITALY – Evocative drawings of sea dogs for the famous colatura di alici, tea bag “archives”, gift cases for chocolates, premium labels for wines, gin and beer, daring typographical games, creative solutions using fire, and refined brand identities. Intuition, art, craft, innovation, but also the right paper or label are behind the winners of the twelfth edition of the Fedrigoni Top Award 2021. The winners were announced on Thursday, July 1st during a ceremony-conference at the ADI Design Museum Compasso d’Oro in Milan, where for 2 days (2 and 3 July) the 50 best entries from the over 1,100 pieces put before the judges have been on display.
The finalists- designers, printers, publishers, brands – come from Brazil, China, Portugal, Spain, France, Great Britain, Germany, Czech Republic, and Italy. They all used Fedrigoni and Fabriano special papers or self-adhesive materials for Manter labels, printed using any technique, to bring designs that were judged according to originality of the graphic design, functionality, accuracy of execution, and appropriate use to life.
Four categories were awarded. In the Publishing category, “No One can Fail – Écrire son Nom (Upo 3)” (Le Havre, France) was ranked first, followed by “Moholy / Nagy and the New Typography” (Mainz, Germany) and “Phoenix Art from the Artist Xue Song “(Shanghai, China). “L’Architecture des Arbres” (Paris, France) received a special mention. In the Corporate Identity category, “Big Kitchen” (Lisbon, Portugal) took first prize, with second and third awarded to “Book Key Cucine” (Verona, Italy) and “Golden Moments” (Leeds, Great Britain).
The winners in the Labels category were “La Lepre e la Luna” (Montecassiano, Italy), “No Man’s Space / Capricorn Vermouth Dry & Eclipse Gin” (Spoltore, Italy) and “Buche & Gran Buche” (Barcelona, Spain), respectively. Finally, in the Packaging category, the winner was “Armatore, lo Zingaro del Mare” (Salerno, Italy) – which in the same category also won recognition for best proposals using HP Indigo® digital printing technology – followed by “Basao Gongfu Teabag Series Packaging – Archive Box” (Xiamen, China) and “Jordi’s Chocolate” (Hradec Kr, Czech Republic).
Amongst the winners awarded by HP Indigo®, sponsors of the event together with Fedrigoni, there were also “Tupigrafia Magazine Issue # 12” (San Paolo, Brazil) for Publishing and three achievements in the world of labels, which this year took the lion’s share with one third of the entries received, confirming a rapidly expanding segment in which Fedrigoni is in first place in Europe. These were “Family Album / Last Colony Gin” (Spoltore, Italy), “Birrificio sul mare” (Camaiore, Italy) and “Quinta dos Montes – Parcela Nº5” (Covas do Douro, Portugal). A mention must also go to the most popular design online, voted for by the community of enthusiasts and professionals: “ITsocase”, in the packaging category, designed by I’M comunicazione for Teorema Mediterraneo.
The winners were included in an international catalogue that will be distributed all over the world and were on display for two days at the recently inaugurated ADI Design Museum, Milan, together with another thirty pieces that the jury judged worthy, innovative, and inspirational. Anyone who couldn’t book a visit due to anti-Covid restrictions can access a virtual tour available on the site https://live.fedrigonitopaward.com/, an engaging, personalised digital experience that enhances the pleasure of the live experience through additional multimedia content such as videos and ad hoc interviews.
Using the same link, it’s also possible to watch the awards ceremony, which was an opportunity to discuss and examine in depth some of the hottest issues related to graphics and design, in brief debates, moderated by Chiara Medioli Fedrigoni, Chief Sustainability & Fedrigoni Communications Officer. After a greeting by Group CEO, Marco Nespolo, the following well-known names in the sector gave speeches on specific topics: Juan Mantilla (KIKO Global Head of Creativity) on packaging, Roger Botti (General Manager and Creative Director of Robilant Associati) on labels, Simon Esterson (President of the jury and Art Director of Eye Magazine and Pulp) and Martina Corradi (Marketing Manager for HP Indigo®) on digital printing, Silvana Amato (teacher and expert in editorial graphics) and Frank Goerhardt (Global Publishing Director of Taschen) on publishing and Simon Esterson on corporate identity. All of them were part of the international jury that evaluated the nominations, together with Min Wang, professor at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, and Ivan Bell of Stranger & Stranger, a world expert in labels for the spirits sector.
“It’s no exaggeration to say that we are face to face with excellence; with each edition the qualitative, technical and artistic level of the projects that the jury is called to evaluate grows exponentially, a sign of a sector that is seeing great success” commented Marco Nespolo, CEO of Fedrigoni Group. Being able to see so many quality designs all together allows us to better understand what is happening in the world of graphics and design, which direction it is taking, and draw inspiration from it. As for us, we are proud to contribute to the creation of designs that are capable of blending culture, experimentation, creativity and new technologies, that reaffirm the role of paper and labels as design
tools.”
