Mineral skincare from the Azores, packaged to glow on a shelf and photograph well on a phone.

The water comes up hot through volcanic rock. We wanted the bottle to hold light the way the rock holds heat.

The brief

Vulca is a small laboratory on São Miguel making serums with thermal spring water. The formulas were excellent; the packaging was a stock bottle with a printed label, and it disappeared on a shelf next to brands with fifty times the budget.

The goal was European stockists, concept stores and pharmacies, and a shop that could sell on its own.

The idea

Amber glass, a copper-coloured cap and nothing printed on the front but the name. Most people now meet a product on a phone before they hold it, so we designed the pack for a three-centimetre thumbnail first and a shelf second.

We built the range in 3D before tooling and lit it like the crater at dusk, so the same file made the renders, the shop and the factory drawings.

What we made

Identity and wordmark
Bottle, carton and dropper
3D renders and product film
Shopify store
Stockist kit and shelf talkers

An amber dropper bottle on volcanic rock in orange light — Hero render, built from the same file as the factory drawings.

Designed for the thumbnail

Nothing on the front but the name. At three centimetres on a phone screen the amber glass and the copper cap do the recognising; the type only has to confirm it.

From the drawing to the glass

One file made the factory drawings and the renders. Scroll to light the range the way we lit it: like the crater at dusk.

Ember#C4521CAnodised cap, carton edge
Amber#E9A24AGlass, 3.2 mm wall
Basalt#1B0D07Type, bulb, shop
Pumice#EFE4D6Carton inside, receipts

The Vulca bottle being lit inside a 3D application, with lighting controls beside it — Lit before it was made: the bottle existed in 3D five weeks before the first glass sample.

Layered volcanic rock cliffs falling to the Atlantic — Where it comes from: the tuff and basalt the spring water rises through gave the range its palette.

What changed

stockists across Europe within 18 months
From two, both on São Miguel.
online revenue in the first year
Half of all orders now come from a phone.
reprints on the first run of 20,000 cartons
Every dieline was proofed from the 3D file.

Who made it

Orvel

Tomás FerreiraDesign directionLisbon
Kayode Adebayo3D and filmLondon
Freya LundStrategyLondon

With

Client team: Helena Furtado, Diogo Medeiros
Glass and tooling: Vidraria Atlântica
3D: Kayode Adebayo, Lior Ben-Ami

Next project E-bike subscription, 2024corsoAn e-bike subscription that had to make swapping a battery feel as simple as tapping a card.