Grönstedts Le National | Design by NINE 2016
Creative Director: Isabelle D. Lidström | Design Director: Andreas Linnell | Client Director: Sabina Svensson | Designer: Lachlan Bullock | Illustration: Tomas Lindell | Industrial Designer: Henrik Lundblad | Production Manager: Asmira Mahalbasic.
Every year on the Swedish national day Grönstedts release 'Le National', their flagship cognac of limited release. This year on the 6th of June 2016, 1,500 bottles of Le National cognac will be released.
With a limited budget and tight time plan, the client briefed us to lift the quality of Le National’s appearance to match that of the product within. In hopes to active the whole brand, a new strategy was created to lift the unique dual origin of the product.
Our objective was not only to design a premium product but to develop analog production techniques in order to deliver a truly special experience that would appeal to all five senses. The result is a bespoke box with a single, locally minted brass coin. Both box and bottle are individually labelled and numbered by hand.
To lift the concept, a celebratory action is embedded in the destruction of the outer box label - by pulling the tarred hemp string and ripping the label the consumer is forced to destroy something beautiful in order to experience the product. By doing this a new tradition of celebration is born.
Le National longs for a world of romance and poetry. Johan Daniel Grönstedt, the original founder from the 19th century, is visualised in the centre of the label baring goods across the sea from France, as though it was for the very first time. Le National reconnects to the origins of the brand and bridges a divide across two cultures. A cognac for those who seek the calmness of the night and shimmer from the sea.
