JKR

There is something very right about the Peroni glass’s combination of form and graphics – it feels at once elegantly stylish and authentic. It’s so good that when a close to five pound Peroni fails to come served in it one feels let down. Given its un-robust shape and the amount that get pinched, this is often.

But it is another kind of stealing which afflicts the design – there are unbranded lookalikes on sale in Ikea (top left) and Amstel have copied the graphical application. Such imitation eventually makes the original seem less special. We had a similar problem when our embossed glass for Stella Artois was copied by all and sundry. But this in turn led to the more radical (for the UK) chalice glass, which got pinched in even greater numbers (flattery in a funny sort of way). The point being that even a deft combination of shape and branding is often not enough to look unique – the only way to stay ahead of the pack is sometimes to invest in genuinely bespoke solutions.