GULLMUNN
Illustrations I made for Gullmunn Spritfabrikk,
a matured akevitt produced by the Norwegian distiller Marthe Bøhn.
Agency: OlssønBarbieri
Client: Gullmunn
OlssønBarbieri contacted me to draw the illustrations,
inspired by the artwork of Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717),
to be silk-screen printed on the bottles.
The illustrations
Oak illustration x Gullmunn juleakevitt, 2019
Iris illustration x Gullmunn Akevitt Fleur de Lis, 2020
The creative process
Silk-screen printing method needs different colors to be separated from each other.
One color is printed at a time, so several screens needs to be used to produce a multi-colored images.
Naturalistic paintings, like the ones of Maria Sybilla Merian,
botanical watercolors and the ones I usually draw, are full of soft gradients and halftones.
The main issue to me was rendering this richness in colors using just flat tones,
as required for screen print.
Being passionate about art history and poster art helped me in finding a solution.
Pointillism (1) was the starting point, and chromolithography (2) suggested me the solution.
My experience in dot illustrations (3) made the rest.
The image should be visible on both sides of the bottle: no overlapping colors and dots,
just 7 primary colors and no secondary ones.
OlssønBarbieri defined the limited color palette for each subject.
Testing color printing sequence and possible shading
The Iris case:
Color printing sequence and final result
The oak case:
The final product:
Gullmunn by OlssønBarbieri
Photo credit: Anne Valeur - cropped image
Gullmunn won the following awards:
2020, Visuelt Gold
2020, Dezeen Awards Longlist
2020, European Design Awards Silver
