15TH BRUNI GLASS DESIGN AWARD
THE WINNERS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED
The competition winners included several Italians: Alessandro Tonini from Brescia (1st in Spirits), Giacomo Rho from Como (2nd in Wine) and Francesca Inzani (2nd in Spirits) from Milan.
BruniGlass.com. https://designaward.bruniglass.com/
The 15th edition of the “Bruni Glass Design Award”, an international design competition focused on glass packaging, concluded on Thursday 21 November with a private ceremony at the Magna Pars Suites Hotel in Milan. The competition was established in 1997 by Bruni Glass SpA, the largest distributor of packaging in Europe, which is now part of the Berlin Packaging Group.
The contest lasted 8 months and involved 6 of the most important European and international design schools: the Polytechnic University of Milan, the Münster University of Applied Sciences in Germany, Purdue University in the United States, IED in Madrid, IUT in Reims, France and UCSF University in Argentina.
Hundreds of competing projects were selected by the company, according to the criteria of “idea” and “producibility”, for the following four sectors: Spirits, Wine, Gourmet and Home Fragrances. Visitors to the Bruni Glass stand at SIMEI (Fiera Milano/Rho - Hall 15 K09/L10 from 19 to 22 November), where the finalists’ works were exhibited, had the final word.
THE WINNERS WERE AS FOLLOWS:
WINE category
1st Horus – Bruno Miskov (Universidad Catòlica de Santa Fe)
2° Voile – Giacomo Rho (Polytechnic University of Milan)
SPIRITS category
1st Monsieur – Alessandro Tonini (Polytechnic University of Milan)
2nd Sparrow – Francesca Inzani (Polytechnic University of Milan)
GOURMET category
1st Elenie – Katharina Seizew (Münster School of Design)
2nd Kleen – Cornelius Richter (Münster School of Design)
HOME FRAGRANCES category
1st Snake – Bruno Miskov (Universidad Catòlica de Santa Fe)
2nd Pierre – Bruno Miskov (Universidad Catòlica de Santa Fe)
Honourable Mention
Canyon – Katharina Bergmann (Münster School of Design)
T-Rex – Lucas Gette (Universidad Catòlica de Santa Fe)
Best graphic design
Sparrow – Francesca Inzani (Polytechnic University of Milan)
Overall winner:
1st Elenie – Katharina Seizew (Münster School of Design)
The three Italians from the Polytechnic University of Milan – Alessandro Tonini from Brescia, Giacomo Rho from Como and Francesca Inzani from Piacenza – presented five projects.
Alessandro Tonini from Brescia
Aged 23, Alessandro graduated from the LABA academy in Brescia, where he studied Industrial Product Design, achieving full marks with distinction. He is currently enrolled in the second year of the master’s degree course in Integrated Product Design at the Polytechnic University of Milan. The project with which he participated and won is a bottle named Monsieur for the Spirits category. He said: “Taking part in the competition allowed me to learn and apply rules and techniques for translating abstract ideas into designs that can be industrially produced. The idea of the bottle for Spirits, Monsieur, came from a desire to exploit and enhance the possibilities offered by the material, glass, attempting to create continuity between the elegant and rigid forms of the past and the new, fresher, modern trends towards fluid, organic design.
Designing a bottle may seem simple, like a formal exercise; in fact, when you begin to do the first sketches and to make comparisons with what already exists, in a world that is now saturated with “forms”, it proves to be a much more arduous and therefore stimulating task.
As I reached the core of the project, it became clear to me that simplicity itself is the real challenge, being able to “shape glass”, perhaps the most sophisticated material, enhancing its characteristics and purity. As Leonardo put it, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.
The Bruni Glass Design Award was the first product competition that I have taken part in and it proved to be a unique opportunity for me to get to work and finally see an idea come to fruition after years of study. Few companies devote so much attention to young people and the importance that Bruni Glass attaches to the competition is palpable at every stage. This was fully celebrated during the final award ceremony, in which the students were genuinely considered to be key players. Being lucky enough to experience and participate in an event and award ceremony of this kind will certainly be highly motivating for me and will be a stepping-stone for the future, as well as a source of inspiration.”
Giacomo Rho from Moltrasio (Como)
Giacomo, who turned 22 on 18 November and comes from Moltrasio (Como), graduated from the Polytechnic University of Milan in July 2019.
He explains that the idea behind the Voile white wine bottle came to him while he was in Tunisia exploring new places, people and ways of doing things. He describes himself as a “wild designer, half creative and half practical, in love with nature”. He said: “I live in a little village that is surrounded by nature. It is a short walk from paths that lead to the lake and others that lead to the top of the surrounding mountains. When I have free time, I go for walks in search of inspiration. The Bruni Glass Award was the first individual competition that I have ever taken part in. I never thought that I would make it to the final, but now I am really pleased about it. It was a very formative and engaging professional experience. Voile aims to express lightness, freshness and dynamism, evoking the most distinctive shapes and features of a dancer leaping towards the sky. I hope that I can continue to develop an unconventional way of thinking in the future.”
Francesca Inzani from Piacenza
Aged 23, Francesca is in the second year of the master’s in Integrated Product Design at the Polytechnic University of Milan, from which she graduated in Industrial Product Design. She participated in the competition with the Sparrow, New Old and Kite projects and won the second prize in the Spirits category with Sparrow, which also won her the award for the best graphic design. She said: “The project is inspired by old glass fishing floats, which have always fascinated me and remind me of my childhood at my grandparents’ beach house. It is a perfect bottle for amber bitter liqueurs because it evokes a ‘pirate’ atmosphere. The main difficulty was technical, since I was required to create a bottle with the right capacity and glass weight, while maintaining the presented details and the bottle’s producibility. This competition allowed me to tackle a theme, a material and a technology that I had never used before. Thanks to the continuous dialogue with the marketing department and subsequently with the company’s technicians, I was able to create a product that could really be produced and marketed. Overall, the event proved to be an important first challenge and “showcase” for me as a designer in the real world, beyond the walls of the university. That is why I believe that the opportunity given by Bruni Glass to young people is genuine and tangible.”
The young Italians were coordinated by professor Mario Bisson, Associate Professor of Industrial Design at the Polytechnic University of Milan. He commented: “The process of developing projects for the Bruni Glass Award begins with a company brief that also provides trend analysis. The proposals then undergo two selection processes, however the Bruni Glass database stores all the ideas, taking an extremely open approach to creativity and innovation: the only limit is feasibility. If we consider Dan Aykroyd’s skull-shaped Bruni Glass bottle for vodka, which has become an icon that has been imitated all over the world, we can see that the technical factor, in relation to successful innovation and the ability to think beyond the obvious, is relative. Nowadays everything is technically possible.”
The Bruni Glass Awards are entirely financed by Bruni Glass and run by the Bruni Berlin holding company. The prize consists of basic remuneration for the project and, additionally, the possibility that the designer’s work will be marketed, with 10 years of royalties.
CEO of Bruni Glass, Paolo Recrosio, commented: “The Bruni Glass Design Award has become a kind of institution that we are proud of because it fully represents our founding values: innovation, talent and creativity.
The young designers competing this year – who we must remember are still students – impressed us with their creations, which are extremely original, yet functional and marketable at the same time.
The gala evening was truly thrilling: it was attended by more than 250 guests, including many customers and suppliers, who are ultimately the main beneficiaries of all this creativity. Indeed, it is no secret that many of the works presented in recent years have been chosen by our customers and have gone on to enjoy market success. We are confident that this 15th edition of the award will also be a source of great satisfaction in this regard.”
HISTORY OF THE COMPETITION
The award was launched in 1997 as “Progetto Millennio” (Millennium Project), a biennial design workshop/competition to encourage students from European universities to take on the challenge of facing the new millennium with new forms of packaging.
Since the first edition, the relationship with young people and schools has been a source of enthusiasm and has brought to light surprising and positive developments.
This enthusiasm has motivated the company to open participation to more universities and to increase the competition’s product sectors.
In 2013, it transformed its image and its name was changed to the ‘Bruni Glass Design Award’. It became a permanent international competition and the most important in the sector, dedicated to students from the world’s leading industrial design schools and universities, and a hotbed of innovation for the entire sector.
The “Bruni Glass Design Award” competition offers students an unrivalled experience, giving them the opportunity to transform their aspirations into a concrete professional result, turning young designers’ dreams and ideas into a first real job opportunity.
Many of the studies presented in previous editions have been developed and sold, becoming hallmarks of certain brands in the food industry.
One example is the Sommelier 750, a finalist project in the Wine category at the 2015 edition. It was designed by Stefano Morazzoni, who at the time was a student at the Polytechnic University of Milan. Sommelier 750 was adopted by the Piedmontese winery Pidrin, which produces red wine, and by the Spanish company Bodega Lozano (Albecete), which produces rosé. Morazzoni also won the first overall prize in 2017 with the Sky Scraper vodka bottle, which is now in the catalogue.
Bruni Glass
Bruni Glass is one of the main distributors of “special” top-of-the-range glass containers (jars and bottles) for the spirits, wine, gourmet and food, and home fragrance markets. The company was founded in Milan, Italy in 1974, as Vetrerie Bruni.
Bruni has over 40 years of experience, a world-class design studio, a network of high-end manufacturers and a team committed to providing outstanding service. In addition to its standard products, the company offers over 3000 “special” customized products for thousands of customers worldwide. Bruni supplies its customers in Europe, North America and the rest of the world.
In 2016 Bruni Glass became part of Berlin Packaging, a world leader in the supply of containers based in North America. In 2018 Berlin Packaging and Bruni Glass acquired the English company H. Erben Ltd, a supplier of closures, equipment and packaging for the food and beverage sectors. In 2019, the company made four acquisitions: in Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands.
Bruni Glass has more than 7000 customers – some based in Italy and others of international renown – which also appreciate the financial stability of Bruni Glass.
Berlin Packaging
Berlin Packaging, a company valued at $2.6 billion, is the only Hybrid Packaging Supplier® that specializes in the supply of glass, plastic and metal containers and fasteners. Every year, the company supplies billions of items to customers in every sector, along with design and planning, financing, consulting, storage and logistics services. Berlin Packaging offers the best production, distribution and profitability services. Its mission is to improve its customers’ economic results through its products and services.
For more information, visit BerlinPackaging.com.
Gruppo Areté Press Office, tel. +39 02 33004397 Mob. + 39 3494330142 martinelli@gruppoarete.it
