“Cheeky, beautiful, funny”: Paula Scher on the redesign of the centuries-old Blue Nun wine brand

Blue Nun was first launched in 1923 with a 1921 vintage. Its original packaging was groundbreaking at the time. Its more direct, consumer-centric design was in direct contrast to the long-decadent, gothic script of most German wines, whose communication alluded to history but made no effort to connect to the present.

Thanks to this branding revolution, Blue Nun became an international favourite: a friendly, affordable wine with mass appeal.

To celebrate the brand’s 100th anniversary, Pentagram has reimagined wine’s famed accessibility and playfulness for a new generation. According to Paula Scher, who led the creative department of the project, the design is: “Bold, beautiful and funny at the same time”.

Blue Nun’s original label image showed 18th-century nuns picking grapes in a vineyard. But for the anniversary, the Pentagram wanted to capture the vibrant, indulgent spirit of the Roaring Twenties from which the brand emerged.

The result is a stunning and effective makeover for Blue Nun’s legendary nun.

The new label features a bold, glamorous portrait of a blushing nun, inspired by 20th-century French designer and Art Deco artist Erté, whose art often celebrated the beautiful, brave women of the 1920s.

Scher explained that she and her team were very interested in connecting Blue Nun’s new look to the 1920s, so at the time there was a lot of research done on graphics and illustrations, and Erté’s work stood out from all the rest. Scher told Creative Boom, “Erté was a natural choice. He drew beautiful and elegant adored women and we wanted a beautiful nun.”

Erté’s influence on the Blues’ new mascot It’s clear now, but Scher also brought her own sensibilities to the design. Motion offers a fresh new layer that brings 1920s inspiration straight into the 21st century. In fact, it looks like Scher and her team’s design intuitively took on the recent TikTok trend of doe eyes vs. siren eyes.

When the nun makes flirty eye contact with viewers on the brand’s web and social platforms, the full sass of Pentagram’s vision for the brand is revealed.

For a more sophisticated look, Scher and her team decided to ditch Blue Nun’s old-fashioned chunky typeface in favor of a thin, hand-drawn typeface. Scher told Creative Boom, “We drew the typeface, but it was designed in a way that was derived from 1920’s typography, although it was thinner than typefaces of the time. The design of the images and typography was really contemporary but with a nod to the ’20s.”

An elevated color palette and a series of gradients bring it all together. Scher and his team complemented Blue Nun’s historic light blue with a richer, more sophisticated shade that borders on indigo. A series of gradient backgrounds were then created to give special accents to each of Blue Nun’s different wines.

Blue Nun’s new identity and packaging is everything wine drinkers want: bold yet sophisticated, rich yet accessible and stylish without being stuffy. But Scher summed up his appeal best: “It’s good time wine!”