Hi. We are boq. We work on graphic and web design and we are here today to show you the work we are carrying out with Conserveira de Lisboa. 

Conserveira de Lisboa is a shop in downtown Lisbon, that has been open since 1930. It currently sells three brands of tinned fish - Tricana, Minor and Prata do Mar - and its more than one hundred products are still manually wrapped in paper at the shop. 

Our story starts in 2009, when Regina reached out to us to renew Conserveira’s pack- aging. The last time they tried to make changes, they had clients coming back ask- ing for the old tuna, because the new one was not as good! The challenge we faced was to make new wrappers without changing anything. We immediately said - Yes! 

The new wrappers should strengthen the identity of each brand, as Conserveira felt that these were being lost. They also had to be more efficient in communicating product information, such as nutritional values. 

We began with an graphic archaeology exercise, looking for the old wrappers, while gathering all of the current ones, registering their characteristics, such as colors, tin shapes or kinds of paper. This allowed us to identify a set of elements that built the visual heritage of Conserveira over the course of its history. 

For example, in Tricana, we liked the contrast between the lady and the main ingre- dient, has we can see in the tin where she is about to be attacked by a giant squid. We also found that the font initially used for the brand had been lost. 

In Minor, the brand used for the smaller fish, we found these wrappers with a cat’s head, placed within a white circle, with the brand name Minor on the top, as if it were a Portuguese Looney Tunes; we found this to be a stronger image than the one being used more recently - those on the bottom line. 

In Prata do Mar, we found that in the brand’s original trade mark, the black and white image, the boat is in a troubled sea. It was based on this research, and on all of the elements gathered from the old and current wrappers, that we designed a new identity for the three brands. 

For the new identity of Prata do Mar, we recovered the narrative of the boat that goes through a troubled sea and returns to shore. We kept the strip with the brand name and recovered the focus on the name of the product that we found in the older tins. 

Another choice we made with Conserveira, was to subvert the traditional relation- ship between the quality of the product and the packaging material. The top tins are premium products. Contrary to the others that are printed in full color in coated paper, these wrappers are printed on kraft paper in one color. 

For the Minor brand, we were unable to resist old wrapper we had liked; we sim- plified it slightly, creating greater emphasis around the word Minor and made the name of the product clearer. 

With wrappers in two color schemes and a new palette, this set became more co- hesive and fun. In Minor and the other brands, we kept an important characteristic: all of the products have colored lateral stripes so that they can be found easily on the shelf. 

For Tricana, we created a new typeface for the name of the product, recovered the original one used for the brand, made her face a little more symmetrical and created a new set of illustrations for the fish. We also introduced a background that identi- fies the main preservative: olive oil, vegetable oil, tomato or water. 

Tricana is Conserveira’s largest and most varied brand, both in number of products and in tin formats, and, as such, it has been a challenge to adapt the image to new products as more are developed. 

The other great challenge we had was to chose colors for over one hundred prod- ucts. We promptly envisioned a set of rules that would help us limit choice. But when we presented this to Conserveira, they said that this would not work, that, for example, tuna in olive oil could never be green. As is usually the case in family businesses, there were a set of implicit rules that we simply were not aware of. 

As such, we adopted the same method that had always been used by Conserveira: the colors are chosen product by product, taking into consideration the rest of the brand and the way the products are displayed for the customers on the counter. We also decided to apply color to the logo that is seen at the top of the tins so that the shelves become more colorful. 

It’s also good to break the rules we created. Above, you can see the wrapper we developed with singer Maria João, the first product of the “Música com Lata” project that will be running to the end of this year. Below you can see Lula Pena in Ink with Melody, that we designed two years ago, which has a tin of squid in ink and a music box with music composed by Lula Pena. 

Conserveira’s strategy was to introduce the new wrappers as the stock of old ones ended, which took about a year. Fortunately, this time, there have been no clients coming back to ask for the old tuna. 

This means that, in a way, our work was almost invisible, which, in this case, made us very happy. We were able to change, without changing, based on a visual heritage that Conserveira already had, in order to let it continue telling its story. Because, at the end of the day, the most important thing is that the delicious lemon sardines are still the same. 

To end, we would like to thank Conserveira for giving us the opportunity to embark on this adventure with them and Pecha Kucha for inviting us to be here tonight. Thank you and good night.