Much like how Titanic cleaned up at the 1997 Academy Awards or Michael Phelps dominated at the 2008 Summer Olympics, Dieline Awards always has one agency that walks away with the most wins across all categories. For 2022, this recognition goes to an agency claiming four wins for three incredibly gorgeous projects. It’s time you get to know Auge Design, the agency behind The Perfect Pop, Bahlsen, and Ginori 1735—and the winners of this year’s esteemed Studio of the Year award.
With previous wins like Mutti for Best in Show in 2018 and category wins in 2021, Auge Design is no stranger to the Dieline Awards. This year, they walked away from the competition with first-place wins in Confectionary, Desserts, and Sweet Snacks, Ready-to-Eat, and Food Branding Identity, along with a third-place win in the Luxury category.
“We would not have expected to be here today,” Davide Mosconi, partner and executive creative director at Auge Design, said. “For me personally, I started working in packaging design only five years ago.”
Italy-based Auge Design began in 2016 with two employees. Since then, less than six years later, they’ve grown to an agency of eighteen people, with not only their original location in Florence but another as of this year in Milan. They aim to create lasting relationships between brands and customers, and Davide said they operate as a family. They like that their team is small but can still deliver big solutions for their clients.
“We are a strategy-based agency,” he said of their design process. “Everything we do starts from a strategy, and we think there’s no good design without strategy. We’re also a very aesthetic design agency. Without beauty, there is no future, and we try to put beauty at the center of our work which is very revolutionary when applied to the mass market.”
Their work doesn’t have all form and no function; instead, they consider beauty a selling point in their work, something missing from many brands today. “It’s not just a matter of finding the most beautiful solution, but the right one,” Davide said. And that’s what sets their work apart precisely. After all, how many popcorn brands have conveniently stackable packaging but make Netflix and chill an extravagant date night? And how many incense and candle packs find inspiration in a family dynasty?
Davide said when new clients approach Auge Design, they conduct deep and thorough research to develop their design. “We really love to start the process and go deep into the brand. We’re like Indiana Jones discovering new things,” he joked. “We love to immerse ourselves in the client dimension and understand who they are.”
Their design for Ginori 1735 relied a lot on the past to create something new and intriguing for today’s consumers. With over three hundred years in the business of luxury goods, Auge Design needed to create something timeless that still felt innovative. They developed box designs for eight different objects—the same number of members in the Caterina de’ Medici community—so the Medici coat of arms became their inspiration. The colors are rich and royal, and the gold foiling is sublime, but the entire design is rooted in history.
On top of a deep dive into the product sector and brand history, Auge Design wants designs to push boundaries with their work—something you’ll see in all three of their winning projects this year. For instance, they took Bahlsen, the German sweet biscuit manufacturer, from bland to bold and brimming with personality. They brought the brand name front and center, covering an entire side of the pack rather than hiding in the corner. Drool-worthy product photography satisfies that desire to see the product inside, but the strong choice of color blocks in the background keeps things fresh and endlessly versatile.
Their third winner, The Perfect Pop, was inspired by the striped patterns on old Luna Park popcorn packaging, but their design goes beyond a revived retro look. Instead, they leaned heavily into luxury while saying more with less. A bold brand icon, thick stripes, and metallic accents elevate the experience of a hands-on snack.
“The printing finishings were our main way of being luxurious and high-end,” Davide said. “We adopted gold hot-foils along with a palette including ivory, black, and a very bright yellow. The combination of these colors and finishings resulted in a very friendly, but at the same time, valuable output.”
The Perfect Pop also stacks, so Auge Design worked hard to balance that practicality of snack packaging with that luxury side and a clever tone of voice. This phase required plenty of prototyping to ensure they nailed the appearance and the containers fit well together. Consumers can pile up the containers as high as their heart’s desire, and these tall stacks add a level of playfulness to the brand.
Between their trio of star projects this year, it’s no surprise Auge Design snagged so many trophies in the Dieline Awards 2022—and these wins mean quite a lot to Davide and the team because Dieline has been a part of the agency’s story from the start. They’ve used the site as a resource to discover new things from their inception in 2016, and it’s helped them keep their finger on the pulse of trends throughout the world.
“We are very truly honored,” Davide said. “Dieline has been, from our agency’s first moment, our main inspiration. So for us, winning Studio of the Year is a very big thing.”
Images courtesy of Auge Design.
