Gitanes Cigarettes

BNW was commissioned to redesign the arguably most iconic cigarette pack and logo in European history - GITANES, faced with a huge drop in worldwide sales, and inject the necessary dose of rejuvenation, while keeping the beloved key characteristics of the logo and the pack.

Gitanes' Gipsy lady is one of the most recognizable elements of the pack and the symbol of brand; we decided to stay with lady but to redesign her.

The illustration itself carries a certain atmosphere of seduction, movement and drama; the shadows on the dancing gipsy and the spotlight makes it look as if she is on the stage, and the way the smoke surrounds her creates a certain level of mystique.

All these attributes are something that everyone immediately notices and associates with the brand Gitanes, and it was very important that this mood is kept in the pack design as well as in the POS that supports the pack.

Therefore, we have aimed to keep the mood and the effect of the illustration through use of light, shadows, clever crops, shapes of smoke and colors. We introduced a great amount of lightness through the enforced usage of the color white and additional sophisticated pale colorways of the formerly dark blue pack background.

BNW's starting point were fantastic artworks of French masters of a highly significant direction – cubism. The way they treated shapes and contrasts inspired us for this range. Smoke is used to highlight the silhouette of the Gipsy dancer, and to ad the dynamic to her pose.

The outline used on the edges gives a lovely shade recognizable as the moonlight shadow. The iconic dancer looks as if she was made of smoke, forever united with it.