Three Label Designs

Beck’s ran a label design competition and picked three winners: Marie Schacht from Dresden, Thomas Gnahm from Weimar, and Franz Stämmele from Stuttgart. Francesca Gavin from Dazed & Confused and Simon Beckerman from PIG helped judge. They got money and the thing that actually matters—their designs on real bottles.

I like that there’s a lineage to this. Phoenix and Ladyhawk both did label designs before, and now these three are next. It’s the kind of work that sounds straightforward until you’re actually trying to make something that reads at night in dim light, doesn’t get lost next to a hundred other bottles, and somehow still feels fresh. The constraints are brutal.

There’s a party in Berlin November 6 where Ting Tings and Phoenix are playing. That’s that moment in Berlin—brands funding cultural moments, or maybe the culture was already happening and the brands just showed up with money. Either way, it works. Designers get paid to do real work instead of spec jobs. Music, design, beer, all mixed together.

I’ve always appreciated when competitions actually result in something real. You’re not just designing for a portfolio or to enter a contest. Someone actually uses your work. It gets printed. People see it. The cycle completes instead of just floating in some brand vault somewhere.