Project Overview
The flat wine bottle project was one of Denovi’s most distinctive engagements in consumer product and packaging innovation. The concept challenged one of the most established forms in consumer packaging: the glass wine bottle.
The proposed bottle used high-density PET to create a premium, glass-like appearance while remaining fully recyclable and significantly lighter than glass. The flat format offered major potential advantages in packing efficiency, transport cost and carbon reduction.
The challenge was not simply to make a bottle flat. The product had to remain recognisably connected to the emotional and cultural expectations of wine. It needed to feel premium, giftable and category-appropriate while delivering a dramatically more efficient packaging format.
Denovi worked closely with founder Joe Revell and the early startup team to develop the first designs for the concept, supporting the work that helped the business win Alibaba’s startup competition and progress toward international growth.
The Design Challenge
Wine packaging carries strong visual and emotional codes. Consumers associate wine with rituals of buying, gifting, opening, sharing and displaying. A flat bottle needed to disrupt the format while still respecting those category cues.
The key design challenge was therefore one of proportion and recognition. The bottle had to be unmistakably different, but still timelessly identifiable as a wine bottle. This required careful consideration of silhouette, shoulder line, neck proportion, base geometry, label area and the relationship between flatness and perceived quality.
There was also a technical and sustainability context. The design needed to support the advantages of high-density PET, including recyclability, reduced weight and improved packing efficiency, without feeling like a compromise compared with traditional glass.
Design and Development Approach
Denovi began by working with the startup team to refine the brief and identify the key design levers. Workshops and discovery sessions helped clarify what the bottle needed to achieve commercially, emotionally and technically.
The early design process explored different proportions and product languages, balancing radical format change with the familiar cues of wine packaging. CAD development allowed the team to test form, scale, label placement, shoulder geometry and overall product presence.
Photorealistic rendering played an important role in communicating the concept. Because the product challenged a familiar category, stakeholders needed to see the bottle as a credible premium object, not just a theoretical sustainability idea. Renders helped articulate the material quality, proportions and shelf presence of the concept.
Rapid prototyping supported evaluation of the physical format, including how the bottle might feel in the hand, how it could be presented, and how its distinctive silhouette could become a brand asset rather than a novelty.
Ongoing Design Partnership
Following the initial launch and global recognition of the concept, Denovi continued to support Packamama as a core design partner. This work has included further design development, prototype concepts, specialist design consultancy and new product explorations.
The ongoing partnership has helped Packamama use design as part of a broader sustainability and market transformation story. The concept has gone on to receive industry recognition and support further initiatives, including work connected to reducing the carbon impact of Australia’s local wine industry.
Outcome
The project helped turn an early-stage startup idea into a distinctive, award-winning and internationally recognised packaging innovation. Denovi’s design work supported the creation of a product format that combined sustainability, logistical efficiency and recognisable wine category appeal.
For Denovi, the project demonstrates how product design can help a startup communicate a technically and commercially disruptive idea with clarity, credibility and emotional resonance.