Tenuta Tortorella's olive oil logo grows from its village's 16th-century arched doors

Tenuta Tortorella is an olive oil estate in southern Italy whose story lies in its place: centuries-old olive trees and three generations of the same family near Altavilla Silentina, a village known for its sixteenth-century arched doorways, decorated on the outside with carved flowers that welcomed visitors. The packaging had to carry the history of the place, the product and the company in one label.

Turn the brand's T into the village's 16th-century arch door and an olive tree, and center each round label on the arches' carved flowers of welcome.

Italian studio nju:comunicazione researched the iconography of Altavilla Silentina and chose the typical sixteenth-century arch doors as the identity's symbol: a simple capital letter — the T of Tenuta Tortorella — redesigned to look like an olive tree and an arched door, with the arch read as the passage from old to new. The flowers carved on Altavilla's arches, 'the flowers of welcome', were uniquely redrawn and placed in the middle of new round-shaped labels on a new bottle, with the product name rotating around them.

The labels turned the estate's provenance into something readable at a glance, giving a small oil producer a mark no other brand could rent. The project was featured by PRINT Magazine and Pentawards in June 2021, appears in the Fedrigoni Top Award 2022 winners archive, and was logged in the D&AD awards archive.

Tenuta Tortorella sits in southern Italy with an estate of centuries-old olive trees, handed down through three generations of the same family, near the village of Altavilla Silentina. The village's sixteenth-century arched doorways — decorated on their outside with carved flowers that welcomed strangers arriving in town — became the obvious raw material when the oil brand needed packaging that could tell the history of the place, the product and the company at the same time.

Italian studio nju:comunicazione made the logo from one capital letter, the T of Tenuta Tortorella, redrawn so it reads as both an olive tree and one of the local arched doors. The arch carried the metaphor: a door holds up the old and welcomes the new, which is exactly the job of a brand mark.

The flowers carved on Altavilla's arches — locally called the flowers of welcome — were redrawn and placed at the center of new round labels on a new bottle shape, with the product name circling them. The harmony and roundness of the flowers carried over to the olive and its flavor, and the whole label narrated the estate's place at a glance.

An arch doorway already did a logo's job in the village — it displayed family emblems and made a statement — so the identity borrowed a form that was born to represent.

One capital letter doubling as an olive tree and a door kept the mark minimal while packing in the product, the place and the passage between old and new.

Centering the labels on Altavilla's carved flowers of welcome gave the oil a story of hospitality that visitors to the village would instantly recognize.

Drawing the system from one village's architecture made it unrepeatable — no other brand could claim the same forms.

When provenance is the product's difference, let the place's architecture set the design language: a mark drawn from local doors and welcome-flowers belongs to one village alone.

The redesigned Tenuta Tortorella packaging circulated in design media from mid-2021 — PRINT Magazine and Pentawards both featured it that June — and the project appears in the Fedrigoni Top Award 2022 winners archive and the D&AD awards archive. What traveled was not just a bottle but the village: the label's arch door and welcome-flowers gave a three-generation estate a way to tell newcomers where its oil comes from without a word of copy.