A Design With a Dual Meaning

Víctor Boldrini and Leonardo Ficcardi, known as Pupo and Gato, are the founders of Boldrini & Ficcardi, one of Argentina’s leading design studios specialising in wine and spirits branding.

Based in Mendoza and with the studio in operation since the early 1990s, they have designed the packaging for a large part of the Argentine wine industry and for wineries across several continents, with clients in Brazil, Chile, Spain, Italy, the UK and the US. Their work has been awarded the Double Gold Medal at the San Francisco International Wine Competition, as well as honours at the New York Festival and Malbec Top Design, and has been featured in the German magazine Novum and by the publisher Taschen.

In this episode, Pupo and Gato share how Argentina’s cultural mix, its mischievous spirit, lunfardo slang and double entendres translate into specific design decisions. We discuss iconic projects such as Mosquita Muerta and Bodegas López, why creativity functions as a daily necessity in Latin America, the value of risk and error as a regional contribution, and their secret weapon: listening to the client and getting out into the field before analysing a brief.