Brief

Starting this project, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Before getting introduced to my mentor, I came up with a brief for wine labels/packaging. I have never had wine and I know absolutely nothing about wine. All I know is that I wanted to do something sophisticated and elegant as I felt like I was lacking something like that in my portfolio and therefore, I already had somewhat of a direction in mind. Initially, I wanted to have a Viking or a Celtic theme for the labels, but after my mentor saw my brief, he said that it may not be a good direction to go in as it felt slightly weird. Instead, he asked me to come up with several simple sentences for wine ideas on how this wine could be unique from any other wines. With this in mind, I came up with the following 8 ideas:

After doing these, he said he liked number 6 and 7, but asked me to come up with another 10 to make the choices even harder. I had already found the first round very difficult as I knew nothing about wine already, so trying to come up with more unique ideas was extremely difficult. I spent several days doing research, figuring out what has been done before, and at this point I already felt overwhelmed and wanted to change my whole project. However, it made me realize very early on at this point that at any given time somewhere down our careers, we may be given a project where we have no existing knowledge on. It just means that you’re going to have to do more research and work harder. I pushed myself to come up with 15 more simple sentences instead of 10 that he wanted me to do:

After sending him this list, he said that his top pick from both lists is number 2: wine targeted towards people who are new to trying wine and don’t know what to choose. He said that he can see this as both an interesting branding/messaging project, but also an interesting packaging project from the perspective of – if you are intimidated by wine, is there an alternate package that doesn’t feel as overwhelming as the classic bottle? Is there a pack or series of packs that encourages you to experiment? Is there an alternative to the classic way to enjoy wine?
There were 2 others that he picked which were 9: wine that allows you to customize and make the flavors, and number 7 from the previous list: Wine that brings awareness to endangered animals in Canada (each wine could feature one endangered animal from each province) and a portion of the money goes to wildlife protection, or conservation projects? From these 3, he asked me to choose one, and I ended up choosing number 2, because he mentioned that the other choices didn’t feel as strong as this one did. In this first round I would give myself a 10/10 because I had really exhausted myself with research and ideation to another level I feel like I hadn’t done before.

100 Ideas
I feel like at this point, I had gotten an idea of what he wanted me to do and that was to really push myself beyond my limits. This next round he asked me to generate 100 names for the wine brand. Once again, I was stuck. I don’t know how I pulled through and came up with 101 names, but that was due to the fact that I went through another stage of research. What are wine brands called? What do their logos look like? What makes their brand unique? After this, I came up with these names:

1. Slice of Wine 2. Wine Geek 3. Viney 4. GrapeVentures 5. Happy Barrel 6. Juicy 7. B.Chill 8. BubblyOne or Bubbly1 9. Happi.Hills 10. Happi.Berry 11. Curi-us 12. Me & U 13. ForU 14. Tri-Us 15. Flo 16. Joli or Jolibee 17. Chill Out 18. Niche Wine 19. Happi 20. Meu 21. Hand in Hand 22. HappyU 23. Re-feel 24. Free Bird 25. Briteside 26. Bliss 27. Friendly Neighbor 28. Veri Winey 29. Veri Viney 30. Custom Hills 31. Jus Chil 32. Loki 33. NewB 34. Chilled 35. Bearded Crow 36. Little Terror 37. Mon Amie 38. The Explorer 39. Explorer’s Point 40. Ommm 41. Destress Wine 42. Freshly Squeezed 43. Northern Hills 44. Fishing for Grapes 45. Clueless Chicken 46. Where’s Waldo 47. OUI 48. Intimidated Grape 49. Veri Red 50. Berri Red 51. RED 52. Melö 53. Grape Cart 54. GiantGrape 55. Sweetous 56. Cheers 57. Island Vine 58. WineCavern 59. Rookie or Rook.e 60. Mellow Grape 61. Wined 62. Winevolution 63. VineHouse 64. Ripened 65. Touché 66. Vino 67. Wine Box 68. Wine Hut 69. Wine House 70. Wine City or Grape City 71. Roadhouse Vine 72. Laughing Grizzly 73. Birdbrain 74. The Wise Owl 75. Rouge & Noir 76. Celestial Wine 77. Aramona 78. 49 Acres 79. Winehaven 80. Vini 81. Origin 82. Verde 83. Purple Valley 84. Nomad or No•Mad 85. Nomad Hills 86. The wanderer 87. Traveler 88. Globetrotter 89. Okanagan Hills 90. W²O (playing off of H²O)? 91. Wine Amigos or cheer amigos? 92. Cheers 93. Sogood 94. Adventure Hills 95. Nerdi 96. Outcast 97. Simply Wine 98. Euphoria 99. Azure 100. New North 101. POP POP or POP!

From this list he said that he liked Juicy, Melo, and W2O and said that I should come up with ideas for packaging and generate lots of wordmarks with these 3. I would again give myself a 10/10 for this round as I felt like I had really pushed my limit to come up with as many ideas as possible.

Wordmarks and Ideas
I didn’t really like the name W2O that much, so I let him know and didn’t do any wordmarks on that. Here are the wordmarks I came up with for Juicy and Melo and some ideas for the packaging:

After doing these, he asked me to come up with even more ideas for packaging and graphics and asked me to leave behind the wordmarks for now. I felt very stuck as I thought I had already explored a lot. Here was my second round:

In the second round, I looked at different bottle shapes, packaging methods, different label designs, sample packs, and interesting ideas that could be put into the final design. After sending these to him, he said that he liked the resume idea for my labels as it tells you the characteristics of the wine in a non-threatening way. He mentioned that the sample packs made him feel more intimidated and told me not to go in that direction. I would give myself an 8/10 on this section because I feel like I wasn’t very clear during these steps on what was on my mind, which may have been why he asked me to keep coming up with more ideas. The resume idea is good, but I feel like at this point it was starting to go in a direction that I didn’t want to go in as it felt it was driving me away from my initial intention with this project. I wanted something sophisticated and elegant, but I guess my mentor wanted me to focus more on creating a really good idea that will come out of this project.

Moodboards and Wine Descriptions
I feel slowly that from here on out, I was a little on my own as his feedback didn’t seem super clear or what steps he wanted to see from me next. I decided to be cautious with my steps moving forward as he seemed to revert me back several times before moving forward. Not knowing what steps to take next, I started coming up with moodboards and some descriptions for 4 different wines: Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Rose, and Cava sparkling wine. Once again, I did lots of research on these 4 different wines to see what makes them unique. This step was one of the most challenging steps in this whole project so far as I had to figure out and research on how these wines were unique from others, but also how to word it out so it seems like it’s a real person with their resume.

Moodboards:

Descriptions:

After sending him these he mentioned that I should come up with a way to inject more fun into the design. And with the copy, he had the same suggestion. He mentioned that the language felt a bit stiff, not personal enough and said that I shouldn’t be so slavish with the resume concept on the writing and that it could be more casual and clear.

From this feedback, I worked back and forth with Patrick to make the copy for all four wines better and it was really difficult for both of us! How can you use wine terminology and try and make it seem like a person’s characteristics? All I can say is that it was very challenging. Along the way as I was making the copy, Patrick helped me to also figure out what type of person the wines might actually seem like in real life and that really helped me visualize what type of people I could draw for the wine labels. I ended up drawing 2 portraits (one for Riesling and the other for Cabernet Sauvignon for now as I feel like my mentor might change his mind again) to use on my labels and to help people visualize what the wine would be if it was a person. After finishing up the portraits, I made several labels to see if there was a certain direction my mentor might like.

Revised copy with Patrick:

Portraits for Cabernet Sauvignon and Riesling:

Some Label exploration:

I would give myself a 9/10 for this round because I feel like I tried very hard for the copy with Patrick and I really enjoyed making the portraits, but I still feel quite uncertain about the labels even though I did many various explorations of them.

Overall, I think that there are definitely a couple things I learned from this mentorship. One, you may get a project where you will be driven to constantly go back to the drawing board. The client may not like it, so you will be required to come up with different solutions, and sometimes that may be many rounds. Another thing I learned is that you need to have very good communication back and forth whether if it’s with a client or not, just to make sure that you are on the right track. Also, you need to have a lot of patience. There may be many projects that may be thrown at you and you may have no knowledge whatsoever regarding the subject, but that is where you should do lots of research and a lot more ideating to capture a good idea and come up with a good product. It also comes in handy to talk to a lot of people who are familiar with the product that you are working on, as they can give you some insight of their own. I have never tried wine and I’m unable to ever have it due to my condition so, it was very helpful to imagine the feeling, the taste, the mood, etc., with the experiences of many people. This was a definitely new type of project for me as I felt like I had no idea what I was doing half the time and the process was much different than mine, but it was good to work on it earlier on to experience what it will be like before going out in the industry not knowing what to do.