José Gourmet

I've just come back from an inspirational trip to Lisbon where I spotted so many beautiful things to blog about. I feel inspired, recharged and am back full of ideas and energy. One of the things I saw in Lisbon, and liked, is sardines. Sardines are to the Portuguese what chocolates are to the Swiss and Feta is to Greeks. They have an abundance of sardines and even have a sardine festival in June where sardines (decorative not real) and fresh basil decorate the streets of the city.

Sardine Festival in June

Anyhoo...spotted in a little deli, I saw these small illustrated packs in a window and made it my business to find out more. May I present to you the lovely packs of Jose Gourmet, is a fairtrade company which produces canned food (including sardines of course), jams, spirits, olive oil, vinegar and wine. Their packaging was designed by Luis Mendonca. Their approach is to ranges keep it simple, using beautiful bottles, brown craft paper with just black logos. Monochrome and minimal yet memorable.

For the canned sardine packaging, each variant has it’s own interpretation of a sardine by a different Portuguese illustrator. These illustrations are printed onto coated, adhesive stock and applied onto a uncoated board wrapping each tin. All four packs sit inside a box with the brands logo punched out of the lid. This typography acts as a window for the illustrations to be displayed when closed. Each variety of sardine comes with it’s own recipe card and poem written by a Portuguese poet. These poems are inspiration behind the illustrations. (via Webbdevlam)

Their milk soaps are almost comical, this a picture of a farmer with the animal whose milk is used for the respective soap - donkey, goat, cow, etc.