Featured image for Spotlight: White Studio

Spotlight: White Studio

by Tiffanie Pfrang on 02/20/2014 | 6 Minute Read

White Studio is an international award winning design studio with offices in Porto, London and Santiago. Among their clients are prestigious companies and institutions, with which they've been building a very trustful relationship. Their multidisciplinary work ranges from print to web, editorial, signage, packaging and interior design.

"We like details and craft, to throw all our energy into wise and solid solutions. We focus on the essential, which is the concept. That is why each project has an expression that makes it unique. We develop a vast research process for each project, studying history and examining production methods, because ideas can’t be based on chance. We also don’t have accounts and other mediators; we prefer to receive each command personally, so that nothing is lost on its way to our office.

These last 25 years of work have already granted us some of the best worldwide design awards, such as the Graphis, Red Dot, Pentawards and Asiago Philatelic Fine." 

BITRI - DIY Calendar (2011) 

The DIY Calendar is part of White Studio self-promotion project: BITRI, a special brand of the studio that specialises in exquisite and luxurious objects all conceptualised and designed in-house.

This particular calendar is all about freedom and a lot of writing. It can be used both as a calendar and a diary, giving the user the freedom to select each day as many pages as he wish. The stickers indicate the day of the month, and can be applied anywhere on the page, allowing the user to write around it. The main objective with this project was to develop a do-it-yourself object, one that can be built differently by each user and personalised as desire.

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Esporão & Lourdes Castro : Labels with silhouettes

In 2012 Esporão invited the renowned artist Lourdes Castro to collaborate on the Esporão Reserva & Private collection. This work continues a series that started years ago and that involves each year the contribution of a renowned Portuguese artist. 

Lourdes Castro’s work always display silhouettes, light and shadows as an axis. That’s precisely what is expressed on these four labels, showing different approaches. There are also references to different stages of her career, sprawling from the 1950´s to nowadays. White Studio’s work aimed at translating the artist work into four different wine labels. Each label was printed with specific solid ink, a reflective foil and a raised UV varnish on lettering elements. Two of the labels additionally embed a die cut silhouette. The set was completed with the embossed “Herdade do Esporão” logo directly on the glass and a hot stamped foil on the capsule element.

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Quinta Dos Murças (2010) 

Quinta dos Murças is a beautiful farm located in the Douro region, in the north of Portugal, and its main activity is wine production. It has been working for several years and White Studio has been invited to recreate it’s image according to nowadays design standards. 

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Rhum Rhum (2009)

Wine label and packaging for a Maitre Capovilla's Rhum.

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Test

Test is Esporão's collection of wines based on experiences by the winemakers.

Each bottle is a test and treated with the simplicity and humility of a winery trial, instead of a glorified wine with years of experience. Each test is experimenting the potential of new wine varieties. White Studio’s label design follows this concept. It’s a simple paper surface with the focus set on the information. Being a technical product, the label has to be objective and it’s purpose very clear. That’s why the chosen letter type has no serif, so that the words content is more important than their form. The objective is to suggest that these bottles are coming directly from the cellar. To augment this feeling there’s some false handwritten elements, the only ones printed in colour. The paper’s down border is also imperfect, as if cut and manually glued to the bottle.

It can be said that it’s a bottle deprived of an identity, but that’s also what gives it such a strong character. 

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