Discover your next big idea at PACK EXPO Las Vegas this September
Experience a breakthrough in packaging & processing and transform your business with solutions from 2,300 suppliers spanning all industries.
REGISTER NOW & SAVE

High-end water bottle pays homage to art deco

AquaDeco overcomes glass bottle manufacturing and filling challenges using a bottle design the founder created before the company even started.

Pw 8182 Aquadeco 1

Which comes first: the product or its packaging? Usually it’s the product, but in the case of start-up beverage company AquaDeco, the bottle for its imported water came before the company even started. Arnold Gumowitz, a real estate businessman and art collector with a penchant for art deco buildings, sketched a bottle with an art deco structural shape and offered his design to a gin company. The company turned it down but suggested he use the bottle for water instead. Gumowitz liked the idea, and in 2004 he started AquaDeco, a company that sells bottled water imported from Muskoka Natural Spring Water, Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada.

To bring Gumowitz’ sketches to life, New York, NY-based AquaDeco worked with Flowdesign (www.flow-design.com). The 750-ml bottle stands tall, resembling an art deco building with fanned out fins that taper down to a stair-stepped base. Flowdesign also designed a brand name logo, which is silver hot-stamped on a clear, 2-mil, pressure-sensitive film label on the front of the bottle. The 2-mil clear film labels are supplied by WS Packaging Group (www.wspackaging.com). The rear label is six-color UV flexo-printed on both sides. The outside back label contains text while the inside back label shows a mountain image surrounded by a blue glow that is visible when viewed through the front label panel.

Once the design was complete, AquaDeco had a new challenge on its hands: finding a company technically capableβ€”and willingβ€”to make the bottle. β€œWe looked in India, China, and Czechoslovakia for someone to produce it cost effectively,” says Evan Cooper, vp of operations. β€œThey couldn’t produce it because of the design. It’s so heavy, and because it’s wide at the top and tapers down to the base, there was a lot of glass on the upper part of the bottle.” The company had molds made and samples run, but each time the bottles collapsed into the base as soon as they were removed from the machine. β€œThe other problem,” says Cooper, β€œwas the quality of the glass. A lot of the samples out of China and India were greenish and dirty looking,” he says. β€œThey didn’t evoke images of pristine water.”

Conveying Innovations Report
Editors report on distinguishing characteristics that define each new product and collected video demonstrating the equipment or materials as displayed at the show. This topical report, winnowed from nearly 300 PACK EXPO collective booth visits, represents a categorized, organized account of individual items that were selected based on whether they were deemed to be both new, and truly innovative, based on decades of combined editorial experience in experiencing and evaluating PACK EXPO products.
Take me there
Conveying Innovations Report
2024 PACK EXPO Innovations Reports
Exclusive access: Packaging World editor-curated reports revealing PACK EXPO's most groundbreaking technologies across food, healthcare, and machinery sectors. Each report features truly innovative solutions selected from hundreds of exhibitors by our expert team. Transform your operations with just one click.
Access Now
2024 PACK EXPO Innovations Reports