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Butter curls once adorned the tables of posh restaurants and dinner parties. But no longer. Now, slugs of olive oil and balsamic vinegar are the condiment du jour and, like wine, come in an array of types and blends. Seen as an 'aspirational' product, their bottles are often on show, so does that mean the traditional packaging conventions of the sector are changing, too?

The growing array of olive oils on the market "flatter us that we are gourmands as opposed to people shopping in Sainsbury's", laughs Silas Amos, creative director at London-based design agency Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR). On the continent, he says, olive oil is sold in tin drums rather than "prissy little bottles". Glass dominates the UK market, according to Euromonitor figures. But some products are moving away from glass, such as Italian brand Nudo.

There were two reasons behind the Nudo tin, according to designer Madeleine Rogers who styled the Nudo packs. "We all loved the aesthetics of a tin because it enables you to have artwork running all around it, and secondly for the benefits of protecting the product," she says. The pack is also 100% recyclable and has a smaller carbon footprint than its glass counterpart when shipped.

Metal jacket
Spanish brand Merula is another mid-priced oil packaged in metal. Design agency Design Bridge, based in London, was behind the pack's branding, which features an image of a blackbird from the brand owner's estate, the Marqués de Valdueza. The oil, originally sold in glass bottles and tins, is now sold exclusively in tins.

Filippo Berio, on the other hand, was originally sold in a tin pack when it was first exported from Italy to the US in the 1860s. It wasn't until this year that the one-litre packs were moved into plastic containers. "It's kind of like they've gone the Coca-Cola route," says JKR's Amos of the new plastic packs. "For me, it doesn't significantly affect my perception of it."

While traditionally only cheaper vegetable and seed oils were sold in plastic bottles, supermarkets are increasingly moving to plastic bottles for olive oil, with Sainsbury's and Asda leading the way. Asda hopes to save a total of 988 tonnes of packaging from May 2008 to May 2009 on its olive oil range alone. Currently, the retailer has moved three of its olive oils from glass to PET bottles and a further six lines have been lightweighted.

Glass, though, still has its place. At the other end of the scale, premium olive oil brands are taking inspiration from wine, vodka and even the perfume market. Greek brand Lambda, with its flask-like bottle, is the perfect example of an attempt to move beyond the traditional design conventions of the sector and "hero the oil", as Giles Darwin, client director at Lewis Moberly, puts it.

"We wanted to create an olive oil that would be the first to be given as a premium gift like Champagne or a Cuban cigar," says Lambda's creator Giorgos Kollipoulos. The glass bottle is sticker free to display the colour of the oil and it is presented in a gift box with a unique PVC information leaflet. "I was trying not to do the traditional look like most olive oils, but a pack that's completely new and innovative, where the purity and clarity and the colour of the product is dominant," says Kollipoulos.

But is this approach suitable for cheaper brands? As Design Bridge creative director Graham Shearsby points out, a lot of the brands are very old and have retained their original olive grove imagery. Doing so engenders a sense of tradition and confidence in the brand. Filippo Berio is one example of a brand that has stuck to the traditional olive green and golden scrolling standard. "The bottle and label are all part of our rich heritage," explains marketing manager Diana Anderson.

It's not necessarily a matter of conveying the heritage, but the "truth" of the brand says Shearsby, who was behind the design of the top end Marqués de Valdueza range that won a gold at the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards last year. Shearsby argues the namesake of the brand, the Marques, is a real person and the label design is based around his family crest.

Lewis Moberly's Darwin agrees that it's important to share the background of the brand with the consumer. "People want to know where the product is coming from, the brand story," he says. Therefore it is important to use the label to convey a sense of the product's background to allow consumers to convey to friends why they chose that specific brand.

Croatian design agency Bruketa&Zinic, for example, was instructed to portray the story behind the Chiavalon brand when designing its packaging. The designers chose a simple small bottle, which they placed in a recycled paper bag to protect the bottle from getting greasy. It has been designed so the bag stays attached to the bottle, although it can be removed so that just the label remains.

Elegantly labelled
The label was also a sticking point for seed oil brand Oleifera. Newcastle-based design agency NE6 was under strict instructions to resist tweeness and "rustification", but to convey its roots as a product of Northumberland, which it did by creating a simple and elegant label. The bottle, meanwhile, was sourced off the shelf. NE6 design director David Coates explains the product was pitched at the "niche culinary oil" market. Oleifera was awarded a silver at last year's DBA Design Effectiveness Awards.

Within the seed oil sector, higher-end brands such as Oleifera and Good Oil are sold in cylindrical glass bottles. This could be due to the fact seed oils tend to be premium products and so designers are able to take a more adventurous approach to pack design and move away from the conventional, squared-off bottle designs.

The proliferation of oils on the market means supermarket shelves are becoming crowded. According to Remmelt Jongkind, marketing director for Napolina, it is becoming increasingly important to help consumers choose which oil they need. Napolina is implementing a new tray design that "colour codes products according to oil sector and details the uses of the oil".

So whether it is a metal tin, glass flask or even a spray bottle, olive oils are moving away from the traditional conventions of the sector. Squared-off glass and pictures of olive groves still play a dominant role, but brands are becoming increasingly open to trying new materials, shapes and labelling concepts. Choosing your oil could soon become as difficult for the uninitiated as picking a bottle of wine.