judges’ picks >> armin vit
5 Bruketa&Zinic
Design 100 judge Armin Vit, founder of UnderConsideration and a senior
designer at Pentagram New York, says that while he doesn’t typically
go in for sentimental visual cues, he was nonetheless drawn to
Bruketa&Zinic’s all-white annual report for Croatian food distributor
Podravka. Titled “Excerpt of the Eternal Debate About the Heart,” it’s
bound with a romantic white ribbon and emblazoned with pretty cursive
script. The exterior certainly could yield associations with Victorian-era
love letters or similarly syrupy ephemera, so Vit was pleased to see that
the wry humor within quickly silences any proverbial violin strings.
The most striking defiance of expectations comes early—
in a 12-page photo series of a little old lady demonstrating the
difference between cooking with and without love. On one lefthand
page, for instance, she scowls and rolls dough—with a beer
bottle; the Podravka logo on her apron appears to have been singed
off with a cigarette. But on the facing right-hand page, the same
lady—now cooking with love—uses appropriate utensils to roll the
dough, and the warmth of her smile could melt Lucifer’s heart.
“The actress was an amateur, but she was extremely talented.
The only time she hesitated was when we handed her a high heel
and asked her to tenderize raw meat with it,” says designer Davor
Bruketa, referring to another left-hand (i.e., loveless) page, which
shows exactly that. “She’s a fine granny who knows what is not
polite at all, but she ended up doing what we asked.”
Bruketa&Zinic also explores love as it relates to Podravka with
a refreshing lack of irony. In an autobiographical text, Croatian
writer Ante Tomic recalls the role of Podravka—and its smells
and tastes—in the emotional texture of his life. Printed in cursive,
Tomic’s script—along with the handwritten recipe notes throughout
the book—can at times be difficult to read. “They’re not trying
to perfect the human touch,” says Vit, “and I think human imperfection
is what gives people heart. It makes us each different—and
a little bit hard to understand.”
The design firm abandons matters of the heart only once—
in a section featuring the number-crunching work of an outside
accounting firm. Printed on 1980s matrix printer paper, “it’s the
part of the annual that doesn’t come from Podravka,” explains
designer Nikola Zinic. “The data come from people who work
with numbers, not with heart.”
“I love the concept of this annual report,” says Vit, “because
cooking really does come down to that. When you put love and
heart into cooking, it becomes an experience that you want to
share with others. Like when your grandma cooks for you, you
know it’s something special.”
That’s assuming, of course, she’s a right-hand-page kind of
nana. by Tiffany Meyers
BRUKETA&ZINIC
CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Davor Bruketa, Nikola Zinic
DESIGNERS: Imelda Ramovic, Mirel Hadzijusufovic, Davor Bruketa, Nikola Zinic
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Marin Topic, Domagoj Kunic
COPYWRITERS: Davor Bruketa, Nikola Zinic, Imelda Ramovic, Mirel Hadzijusufovic
PRODUCTION: IBL Osijek
CLIENT: Podravka Food Company
CONTACT: www.bruketa-zinic.com
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