An 18-month brand built around more than a spirit: the fruit, memory and living community of Kulina in Bosnian Posavina.
The brief arrived as a series of labels for an exceptional craft rakija. It became an end-to-end brand with a larger responsibility: to tell the story of a place, honour the people who kept its knowledge alive and give that story a contemporary future.
In Bosnian Posavina, distilling rakija is not simply production. It is a yearly gathering, knowledge passed from grandparents to younger generations and, for many who had to leave, an emotional route home. The product had the quality to compete at the top of the category; the challenge was to make that quality visible without polishing away the intimacy, resilience and soul of the community behind it.
Korijen — root — gave the project its name and its meaning. It speaks of fruit trees, family memory, physical return and the new growth that protects what came before it. From that idea we built three related marks, ten bottle expressions, orchard-derived graphics, tactile packaging, documentary art direction and a warm, knowledgeable voice across print, web and launch communication.
Five fruits now move through one coherent system in unaged and barrique expressions. The identity, packaging, photography, multilingual website, distributor journeys, launch strategy and production standards all carry the same recognisable voice: contemporary in execution, generous in tone and inseparable from Kulina and Bosnian Posavina.
Distilled heritage in every drop.
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Fruit, fire, time and the people who carry the craft forward.
The visual language stays at human height: orchards, harvested fields, wild forest, village homes, people and animals are photographed as a visitor would encounter them. No distant spectacle and no artificial composites. The same honest, warm point of view shapes the multilingual product stories, distributor inquiry and places-to-taste journey.
The solution was not a decorative layer around the bottle. It was one connected system for making the quality of the spirit, the knowledge behind it and the emotional weight of its origin visible at every touchpoint.
Market research and interviews reframed the brief from label design to brand creation. Korijen became a name for heritage, return and future growth — emotionally specific to Bosnian Posavina and clear beyond it.
A typewriter-inspired master wordmark, a reduced circular K and the Destilerija Kulina seal create a family of related marks for the bottle, contemporary communication and the producer behind it.
Four labels wrap each bottle. Fruit-led colour separates the range, while side labels use real tree-ring prints taken from the corresponding orchard species. Tactile stock and embossed details turn quality into something the hand can feel.
Every packshot was photographed rather than rendered so the differences between clear and barrique spirits remain visible. Documentary-led imagery keeps people, fruit, animals, fields and craft at the same honest scale.
Each fruit receives its own product journey: varietals and terroir, an orchard cross-section, distillation, unaged character and barrique maturation, followed by direct inquiry and stockist discovery.
Brand voice, channel guidance, a three-month launch plan, photo and video principles and a full visual standards book give the client a system that can grow without losing its point of view.
