Novo
Novo from Giulia Bencini
NOVO

NOVO means “new”, and new always means to do things a little differently. NOVO is an organic supermarket that provides you with everything needed for your weekly shopping. As the store offers a big part of its goods unpacked and loose, you’re the one to decide how much you want of a product and you have the chance to pack it more eco-friendly: in paper or textile bags, in glass jars or bottles that you can either buy in the store or bring from home. Following the “zero waste” movement, NOVO hopes to reduce packaging and food waste and give people the chance to consume more sustainably and responsibly. The overall goal is to decrease people’s carbon footprint by offering regional and organic goods and decentralization of the food market. It’s all about the concept of: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Since NOVO aims at re-framing and re-shaping current conditions in the food and consumption system, the store interior, as well as the branding, takes up this idea visually.

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Together with the owners of NOVO we defined the 3 core values that will serve as the base for NOVO in an extensive brainstorming session: openness, sustainability and rsponsibility. From then on we looked for ideas of how to translate those values into the reality of the store: A coffee and reading corner for the customers to have a break and rest for a while, multi- lingual store signs to include people of all nationalities, the connection to a vegan/vegetarian restaurant in order to create synergies regarding the use of food, a rent-a-bike service so people can easily transport their goods home, product signs providing important background info on the products, recipe-baskets and cards to inspire people in how to use the products offered at NOVO, workshops and many more ideas.
The shelf construction itself is based on the idea of a yellow frame that puts emphasis on the products. Inside the shelves, the products are given space to breathe, which supports a feeling of quality. For each product group the shelf slightly varies in size and dimension as each group requires different segmentation and use of space. The material choices are — of course — plasticfree and natural, using untreated wood, with a layer of natural white and yellow oil.
The cylyndric dispensers are made out of metal and plexiglass and can be fixed to the wall or the structure itself. A variety of products can be filled into them, so the customer can choose the amount he or she wants or needs.
For the products that can't go into dispensers (like spaghetti), we included metal bins, covered with jute and provided some wooden pincers to take out and package the product.
In order to shop at NOVO you either have to bring containers from home to fill in your products, or you can choose between metal or glass containers and textile or paper bags that are up for sale in the store.
Following the principle of "Reduce, reuse, recycle" the packaging paper in which the goods are shipped to NOVO are re-used for packaging products as gifts. At the same time, business cards are also made out of recycled paper, using a simple one-colored stamp to print the logo on the cards.
By defining permanent and temporary information in the store NOVO wants to be able to reduce or even completely avoid waste: Pre-defined grids are printed on the dispensers and can be written on with a black water-soluble pen. In case dispensers change products, the respective information is easily changed. Same goes for information on the walls: Seasonal information or a description how shopping at NOVO works are — again — divided into the permanent and the temporary part. A yellow frame, in combination with the headline of the section make the permanent elements that are plotted on foil and put on the chalkboard wall. Then, temporary information can easily be added by hand with a chalk pen.
NOVO's website.
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NOVO

NOVO means “new”, and new always means to do things a little differently. NOVO is an organic supermarket that provides you with everything needed for your weekly shopping. As the store offers a big part of its goods unpacked and loose, you’re the one to decide how much you want of a product and you have the chance to pack it more eco-friendly: in paper or textile bags, in glass jars or bottles that you can either buy in the store or bring from home. Following the “zero waste” movement, NOVO hopes to reduce packaging and food waste and give people the chance to consume more sustainably and responsibly. The overall goal is to decrease people’s carbon footprint by offering regional and organic goods and decentralization of the food market. It’s all about the concept of: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Since NOVO aims at re-framing and re-shaping current conditions in the food and consumption system, the store interior, as well as the branding, takes up this idea visually.

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Available
Freelance, Full-time
Giulia Bencini
Designer Bolzano, Italy