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Pedro Vareta Studio rebuilds ELA Wines from bottles, labels and boxes
The rebranding of ELA Wines by Pedro Vareta Studio illustrates the importance of evolving a brand's identity while retaining its core elements. By creatively integrating the bottle silhouette into the new wordmark and developing a cohesive visual system, ELA Wines not only modernizes its image but also enhances its communication strategy, positioning itself as a partner in the wine production process.
The Brand Identity: After more than 40 years in the market, ELA Wines’ identity was little more than a clichéd bottle logo. When Pedro Vareta Studio was brought in to rethink the brand, they made an unexpected choice. Instead of starting over, the new wordmark keeps the bottle and multiplies it through a smart and surprising solution.
The three letters of ELA are built from the silhouettes of bottles, labels and boxes, with each character constructed through positive and negative space. ELA is a mobile provider of bottling, labelling and packaging services, supporting wineries across the Iberian Peninsula directly on site through a fleet of trucks that travel from estate to estate. The client arrived attached to the old bottle mark and initially wanted only a refresh. “We quickly realised that reworking the existing symbol would only lead to an exhausted formula,” Vareta tells us.
Instead, the studio, alongside Pedro Duarte, set out to repeat the bottle inside a tighter system, using the square box as the base geometry for the letters and exploring the bottle silhouette both vertically and horizontally within that frame. The letterforms came together quickly once the concept was set. A label detail entered as a fix for the crossbar of the ‘A,’ drawn as a thin horizontal block sitting where the bar would normally run, and they liked the effect enough to repeat it in the ‘E,’ lending the wordmark an almost slab-serif quality. Underpinning all of it is Helvetica Black.
The characters were widened, a wedge serif was added to the top of the ‘A,’ and the bottle forms were worked into the white space between and inside the letters. “In the end, Helvetica Black worked only as the structural pillar of the logo, with all the details being created from scratch,” Vareta reveals. On the cliché he set out to dodge, he is direct: “We wanted to avoid a bottle logo!
Like the client already used… We feel very proud to have come up with a logo that has even more bottles :), without looking like a clichéd bottle logo.” ELA’s bottling machinery operates from a fleet of more than 15 trucks moving between wine estates, so Vareta saw these vehicles as the brand’s biggest communication asset from the outset – moving billboards driving through the regions ELA wants to be seen. To carry that communication, the studio commissioned illustrator José Cardoso to develop a series of characters representing the company’s services.
Workers fill, label, pack, carry and transport bottles, grapes and boxes, and toast, juggle and smile as they go. The brief to Cardoso was loose by design. “We gave him some character references, where you could see broad, strong limbs, with big hands and simple faces,” Vareta explains. “What we like most is that he never delivers exactly what you imagine: he always brings something better to the table.” Asked for an image that could capture the spirit of the business, Cardoso returned with a man hauling a giant grape cluster; for the packaging service, he proposed two men toasting inside a wine box.
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The rebranding of ELA Wines showcases significant design strategies that can influence brand identity in the wine industry, making it relevant and impactful for brand strategy professionals.