Nazionale & Auge Design: A bar-sport icon turned into timeless packaging | Avery Dennison

A playful and premium take on amaro and limoncello

Designer: Auge Design
Printer: Modulgraf
Label materials: Fasson® Cotton Extra White

The crack of the ball, the clatter of rods, the rush of friendly rivalry — few sounds capture Italian bar culture like a foosball match in full swing. It’s fast, noisy, joyful and unmistakably social. That same spark set the creative tempo for Nazionale Spirito Italiano’s reimagining of two icons: amaro and limoncello.

The idea began with Alfonso Califano, internationally renowned bartender and cofounder of Cinquanta, a high-end Italian-style bar ranked among the world’s top 100. He approached Auge Design with a clear ambition: reinterpret amaro and limoncello in a premium, contemporary key and build a brand distilled from Italian identity — Amaro Nazionale and Limoncello Nazionale. From the outset, the team immersed themselves in the bar sport, a national social hub where the foosball table is a true cultural staple.

“The foosball table is such a simple object, but it embodies community, play and the atmosphere of small-town bars,” says Davide Mosconi, Executive Creative Director at Auge. “We wanted to use that as the foundation for something sophisticated and premium.”

Look at the bottles and the reference clicks. Each silhouette resembles a stylized foosball figure — red for the amaro, blue for the limoncello — expressed through geometry rather than literal mimicry. The cap completes the gesture with a custom spherical profile that nods to the ball, and a small die-cut emblem recalls the plaques you find on real players.

But tactility drives the identity as much as shape. Auge chose our Fasson® Cotton Extra White paper for the main label to land a raw, fibrous feel that communicates craft the moment fingertips meet paper. “We needed a paper that could express craft and authenticity, but also feel high-end and contemporary,” adds Andrea Mastroluca, Associate Creative Director at Auge. “Fasson Cotton Touch was the perfect choice — it makes the bottle feel rustic, while its whiteness allows the design to stay clean and modern.

Execution had to be as precise as the concept. Modulgraf handled printing and finishing, dialing in the clean die-cuts for the emblem, the build of glossy UV and the register needed for the circular back label’s texture. The result feels engineered and exciting at once — the accuracy of a great foosball shot translated into print.

“By distilling the foosball figure down to its essence, we could keep the playful reference while ensuring the bottle still felt elevated,” Mosconi explains. “That balance was the key to making it work in high-end mixology.”

Recognition has already followed. The project won Best of Beverage at the Dieline Awards, Best of Packaging Design at the Art Directors Club Awards in New York, and most recently, two Gold awards in the Beverage category at the Pentawards — three of the most prestigious international honors in design. In the end, Amaro Nazionale and Limoncello Nazionale bottle a feeling as much as a flavor. Shape, texture and finish work in concert to translate a familiar object into something iconic — and timeless. With a foosball figure as a muse, a cotton-rich Avery Dennison label as the canvas and tight production from Modulgraf, the project shows how design, materials and partnership can turn a spark of play into a premium, award-winning identity.