NOVO means “new” — and new always means to do things a little differently: NOVO is an organic supermarket that opened its doors in 2017 in Bolzano. As the store offers a big part of its goods unpacked it’s up to the consumer to decide how much of a product is needed. Following the “zero waste” movement, NOVO hopes to reduce packaging and food waste and give people the chance to consume more sustainably and responsibly. Therefore, the products can be bought without packaging: In textile bags, in glass jars or bottles that can either be bought in the store or brought from home.
NOVO brings plastic free grocery shopping to Bolzano and helps to establish the idea of the Zero Waste Society.
But how to make a design project really and fully eco-social itself? NOVO itself surely encourages eco-social transition in society, but how could we as designers structure our work in ways it supports the values of ecological and social sustainability? As a starting point, a survey among packaging-free stores around Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria was conducted to get first impressions on what is important and notable when starting a zero-waste store. Furthermore, zero waste stores were visited to gather inspiration and concept-ideas on store interior, containers and packaging options, branding and visual appearance and communication strategies. For sharing this knowledge and supporting future packaging-free stores, we created an Open Source Project Timeline and a Wiki with all the gathered information.
DESIGN OUTPUT
For us, Eco-Social Design goes beyond creating visual design. It is a way of combining conceptual and design work and communication and networking activities to support sustainable and social change.
- The NOVO Philosophy and Concept
Together with the owners of NOVO 3 core values were defined: Openness, Sustainability, and Responsibility. This formed a base for ideas of how to translate those values into the reality of the store: A coffee 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, product signs providing background info on the products, recipe-baskets and -cards to inspire people in how to use the products offered at NOVO — and many more ideas. - Dynamic Branding & Visual Language
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 by breaking the frame. The dynamic and moving branding encorporates the idea of movement and change. - Realisation
NOVO was developed in collaboration with Maria and Stefan Zanotti who had the wish to open a packaging free store in Bolzano and to make it easier to get the ingredients for a healthier and better way of living. As a result, NOVO opened it’s doors in via Weggenstein and the Social Media Group „Zero Waste in Südtirol“ formed around the idea of plastic and waste free living.
Students involved in the project:
Johanna Perret, Insa Keilbach and Giulia Bencini
