EDINBURGH-based creative studio Contagious has teamed up with Nordic distillery FEDDIE on a bottle honouring more than 1,100 female investors behind the business.
Located on the island of Fedje, off Norway’s west coast, FEDDIE was founded by Anne Koppang in 2019 with the aim of empowering women in an investment world where 80% of the stock market’s value is controlled by men. It achieves it by allowing only women to invest in the brand. So far more than 1,100 women have joined the cause.
Contagious has helped to provide a brand identity and bottle design under the umbrella campaign – Powered By Women.
“FEDDIE is doing something truly different, brave, and progressive,” said James Hartigan, creative director at Contagious. “From the outset, we avoided the whisky clichés – no ornate stoppers, no woodcut illustrations, no faux signatures, or superfluous outer packaging. We built a brand first, then designed a bottle that quietly but powerfully embodies what ‘Powered by Women’ really means.”
At the sharp end of FEDDIE’s new look is a bottle that pays tribute to the people behind it – 751 embossed dots and 521 dashes – one for every female investor and island inhabitant at launch. Together, they form a flowing, wave-like motif designed to symbolise the energy behind the business and the coastal landscape that anchors it.
Those dots and dashes are built into the mould and updated each time a new bottle design is refreshed in the years to come, ensuring the bottle evolves as the community grows.
“Embedding the scale and scope of the cause into the bottle was daunting creatively,” Hartigan explained. “But once we hit on the idea of it evolving, it felt inevitable. Each bottle becomes a physical marker of the movement’s progress.”
The first run of bottles featured the names of every investor and contributor on the label.
With no cork, no outer packaging, and no unnecessary embellishment, the lightweight 450g bottle embraces a pared-back Nordic style. “There’s an unwritten rule in premium whisky that heavier bottles signal higher quality,” Hartigan said. “We wanted to flip that. This bottle proves lightweight design can still be premium – and purposeful.”
Aina Lemoen Lunde, FEDDIE’s CEO, added, “It was a big challenge and the brand world Contagious produced is really quite amazing.”
FEDDIE launched in the UK at the London Whisky Show earlier this month as the brand begins to make waves beyond Scandinavia.
“When you pick up a bottle of FEDDIE,” Hartigan said, “you’re not just holding a whisky – you’re holding a moment in a movement. One that’s growing, evolving, and rewriting the rules.”
