Carrick - The owners of Carrick Winery explained two known uses of the word carrick, one a boat, was not appropriate, the other is a knot. Using the knot as the basis for the graphic we added the terminated the rope ends in a New Zealand Maori art style. The whole icon is strengthened by mounting it on a black square, to give the graphic a timeless yet contemporary feel. The word Carrick is in a very traditional font, by letterspacing, the heading has a modern freshness.
Grasshopper Rock - This vineyard has two claims to fame, it is situated directly on the old gold dredge tailings next to the mighty Clutha river, and it contains the protected environment of a unique grasshopper. This ancient insect is unique and the vineyard has taken it upon themselves to help ensure its survival. Knowing this, the branding becomes self apparent, one of the grasshoppers sitting on a rock, which happens to be a gold nugget.
Gibbston Valley Rose - This company is a great Pinot Noir producer, with this varietal taking centre stage . Unknown to many was the fact that they also make a fantastic Rose, This wine was on the shelves but the label was dated.I redesigned the label on a metallic gold background, keeping dimensions of the label in tune with the elegant bottle. I also scaled down the label so it was framed in the beautiful red/pink hue of the wine. The result, that summer the Rose outsold the Pinot Noir.
Mt Difficulty - For this brand I created a New Zealand style graphic of a hot burning sun, to pay tribute to the local environment, and heritage. I considered the name quite negative, so rather than hide it made it the focal point, rendering it in a complicated calligraphy style. The real issue with a composition like this, is balance, and in the case of a label, limited space for other critical elements. The finished composition has an elegant balance.
Mt Rosa Wines - Mt Rosa is owned by real characters, I wanted to show this and the farming heritage of the land in this label. The label has 2 design aspects, the first is the red leaping sheep icon that captures the stories of sheep jumping over cliffs, its curved horns give the icon a New Zealand feel. The second is a modern classic look, like you might find on a classic car, we wanted to do something a bit cooler than the normal white background, hence the bold black and white type on the bronze background.
Postmaster House - This restaurant is in the old Postmasters House in Arrowtown. The logo reflects the two faces of this land, the lush greens of spring and summer and the brown reflects the colours of winter and autumn. This brand was one of two I created that were chosen for a book on cutting edge branding in 40 countries worldwide published by Rockport in association with ICOGRADA. In New Zealand section, my company and a large international agency in Wellington were they only studios to have work included.
Benger Wild cider - Benger have always been orchardists. Making cider raised the issue of who is the target market, beer, fruit juice or wine drinkers? I decided to target the biggest and easiest market to try and convert the beer drinker. I wanted to create label that has the classic beer label style, but with more elegance using a palette of a metallic bronze, metallic silver grey, and black and white. The result is a label that appears to have value, whilst still hitting a familiar chord with the market.
Brass Knocker - Brassk nocker is a rare soil type, deemed ideal for growing wine. This new winery liked the idea of leveraging this quirky name, it gave me a chance to have a bit of fun associating and icon with the name, I went for the literal approach using a brass door knocker as the logo. I wanted something totally different particularly as they planned to use a standard burgundy punt style bottle. The planned label would use the long vertical shape to show of the banner style label.
Desert Heart Wines - Making good wine involves hard work, knowledge, and a good dose of passion to add thad defining x factor. So it is at Desert Heart, where the ladies create something special. The vineyard is situated in a desert-like area, it gets very hot, For this brand I chose to create a heart in the shape of a grape leaf, the painted colours look hot and the words look like they were scribbled with charcoal.
Ellero Wines - Ellero Wines is the legacy of two very experienced wine industry professionals. Hard work and indepth knowledge makes for great wine. What was really hammer home to them in the process of getting established, was how the forces of nature come together with the land to make great wine. To highlight this they wanted branding that reflected that process, the graphic consists of swirling and flowing lines of water, air, heat, cold and sun.
Mondillo Wine - Mondillo is one of the new stars of New Zealand wine. The owners knew they needed an impressive brand profile to compete with the established brands. I consciously played down the Italian sounding name and went for a high impact icon featuring a strong M with a New Zealand style vine. To get the brand in the face of buyers we die cut the label in the same shape as the M to create a truly distinctive label.
Surveyor Thomson - The founder of this vineyard is descended from the one the first surveyors of New Zealand including the wine growing Central Otago region. His theodolite is still at the Otago Museum, I had great fun drawing this many years ago in Freehand. The brand is in the form of a medal, so gives great credibility to the label, combined with some nice clean classic typography the finished effect is a very refined label that communicates a real feeling of quality.
Carrick Unravelled - This is Carrick Wines second tier Pinot Noir brand. The name Unravelled links it with their knot icon. The new name gave me a great opportunity to do something unique. Playing with the idea of a rope unravelling I created graphic that looks almost like a cross between a native New Zealand fern and a rampant set of vine tendrils, albeit with a very elegant form. To give the brand more impactI added a bright red background. The result is a very elegant composition.
Untamed Heart - This is the second tier brand for Desert Heart. With the Untamed Heart brand I focussed on making the brand more funky and loose and secondly, give it a New Zealand feel. To do this I created a heart of two vines coming together symbolizing the two partners in the business coming together, each adding their own, colour, skills and energy to the wine. The headline in a strong classic serif font, in this case it looks weathered and stressed but still maintains it dignity and strength.
Yamhill Meadowlark Rose - Yamhill Wines is based in Oregon. The Meadow Lark is the icon bird of the brand and is usually shown standing side on looking very static. For the Rose I approached the branding and labeling from the New World wine branding perspective of clean strong, yet minimal graphics. I created an image of the Meadow Lark as if flushed out of the long grass rendering it more in thestyle of a Japanese print, the composition is simple, yet full of detail and complete.
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Wine Labels
A successful wine label is probably one of the most challenging packaging jobs a designer can do. Limited in space, a label is pitching the product passively into a very competitive marketplace. A label needs to fit the company profile no matter what the price point, and if not selling in volume, we consciously need to keep the production costs down. To my advantage I have been able to design the brands these labels pivot off. When labels are right the wine walks off the shelves, get the smallest thing wrong, no sales, a great test for a designer.