My most recent school project has got me thinking about the, now recent, future. In this class, professionals from around town visit and present us with a design project. Most of them have been pretty cool, a few lame ones, but this one got me excited. The goal of this project was to name and design three different wines. Each wine is from a different region around the world and our name choice has to be found by doing research about the three regions. The thing that got me excited was the professional that presented this project just so happened to be the Art Director of a place I really want to work.
So my task at hand was to name a Cabernet Sauvignon from Aconcagua, Chile, a Chardonnay from Washington, and a Pinot Noir from Marlborough, New Zealand. I did my research and came up with three unique names that I feel stand out on a shelf.
My first wine I presented was my Cab from Chile.
I named this wine "Zabala", which is a fruit native to Aconcagua, Chile. In my design I feature the blossom of that particular fruit tree. I felt the natural colors of the flower lended themselves perfectly to an elegent and modern label designer. The target audience for this wine was both men and women.
The second wine I presented was my Chardonnay from Washington.
My research found that Washington shares the same lattitudinal line as famous growing region in France, such as, Bourdeaux and Burgundy. The reason these areas grow such great wine is in the soil. It is sandy and studded with stones. So I decided to play off of that characteristic and named my wine "Stone Studded". The target audience for this wine was women and I wanted to try a real modern avant-garde design that I hadn't seen on wine labels I looked at. One of the cool things about this design is that if is was ever really produced all of the gems would have a gloss varnish over them so they stand out from the other printed areas.
Finally, the last one I presented was my Pinot Noir from New Zealand.
While researching the Marlborough region of New Zealand I stumbled across a link to a page about the Maori tribe. I became intrigued and dove into more research about this culture of people. I came across an art style that I really liked that only used red, white, and black with really simplified shapes, but the shaped had meaning. I also discorvered a war dance that the Maori did called the Haka. This dance was to intimidate their attackers. I named my wine after that dance because I felt it was an appropriate name for a Pinot Noir. Pinots tend to be hard to grow and could use a war dance to ward off their enemies. The bands around the top represent grape vines and the grapes that grow on them to make the wine. I used the Maori art style that I found to illustrate my label. The target audience for this wine was Men so I felt this bold treatment was appropriate for that demographic.
This label was my favorite so I did my one ad for this wine. Here is what I came up with.
I tried to do something that emulated the bottle design so that when the consumer sees the ad, they will automatically know what to look for when they go to the store. My body copy explains the brand concept since this is its first unveiling. I thought it would be cool to let the reader know what the wine makers behind the wine were thinking when they created it.
So now that the project is done and I have presented it to my dream employer I feel great. He called two of my designs, "Heroes". What he meant was that they were perfect and would stand strong on the shelves. I just liked the reference to comic books and I am so pleased he liked my designs. I can now look toward my future with a smile and hope that they have an opening when I apply. Other than that it was nice to know that someone in the real world acknowledged my work as something that could be actually produced. It didn't just look like student work to him, he saw the professionalism and I feel great that I have put in so much effort over the passed five years. It is finally going to pay off and I will be done with school. I will be able to focus on my career and starting a family with my beautiful wife.
Sorry for the length of this blog, but hopefully my designed pulled you through it with comfort and ease. Have a nice night, peace out.
