The archive · Product Ideas · Strategic decision · 2023–2024
Pastiglie Leone reborn with Turin street-sign typography — Pentawards 2024 Platinum
A 166-year-old Turin candy maker unifies its portfolio with wordmarks drawn from Turin street signs and a gold 'L' stamp — winning Pentawards 2024 Platinum.
Pastiglie Leone
What it had to solve
Pastiglie Leone, founded in Turin in 1857, is an Italian national icon with a wildly varied portfolio of pastilles, jellies, licorice and chocolates. Its packaging had lost a unified voice for modern, global shoppers.
How it works
Pastiglie Leone has made pastilles, jellies, licorice and fine chocolates in Turin since 1857, a brand woven into Italian childhoods. But a portfolio that grew over 166 years had lost one voice, and the family firm needed to speak to a global audience without betraying its history.
Design Bridge and Partners built the rebrand around 'sensory escapism' and found the solution inside Leone's own DNA. Typography draws on the classic street signs of Turin, with embellished underline strokes and playful characters; the graphic patterns on each pack are formed from the iconic shapes of the pastiglie themselves, sealed with a gold 'L' stamp taken from the family's archives.
The result unified a complex, heritage-laden portfolio while keeping each pack characterful. At the 18th Pentawards in 2024, the work took the Platinum Award in Brand Identity & Connected Packaging, the category's top honour, and contributed to Design Bridge & Partners being named Pentawards Design Agency of the Year with eight winning projects.
Why it lands
- The identity's raw materials — street signs, candy shapes, a family seal — come from the brand's own heritage, so it feels discovered rather than invented.
- One wordmark system unifies a chaotic portfolio while allowing each pack its own character, solving variety and consistency at once.
- The gold 'L' stamp turns an archival detail into a quality cue that communicates craftsmanship without saying a word.
- The guiding idea of 'sensory escapism' gives every future product a place in the same world, making the brand extensible.
What it did
Won the Platinum Award in Brand Identity & Connected Packaging at Pentawards 2024, the category's top prize — and the project helped Design Bridge & Partners take the same year's Pentawards Design Agency of the Year with eight trophies.
What you can take
Heritage brands can change everything visually and change nothing in essence: mine the archive — architecture, sign-writing, family seals — so the new identity reads as the brand rediscovering itself.
Since then
The rebrand helped Design Bridge & Partners win eight Pentawards trophies in 2024, including Design Agency of the Year, with La Dolce Vita cited as its standout packaging project. The agency describes the new identity as defining the next chapter of Leone's history — an Italian national treasure reinvigorated for a new generation of shoppers.
Sources
- 2024 Top Winners Announced
- Pastiglie Leone — Moving moments of pure happiness
- Winners of the 2024 Pentawards
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card