PERMUTATIONS

I began this project with no real knowledge of in depth wine packaging. So I really felt some popper research into the subject had to be taken. At the start of the process I took a trip to the wine department of Harrods which became an invaluable experience in terms of gaining a knowledge of the subject. We were shown around by a very helpful member of staff, she explained some of the fundamentals of what semiotic languages and subversive material was used as a visual reference to the customer, regarding what kind and quality of wine they were buying. She explained that certain deep blues and reds gave the impression of quality and an established trusting brand. Whereas a pink was very popular with the younger wealthy generation and almost associated with bad taste by a more seasoned crowd.

From the research I conducted I found tat a lot of brands had used illustrations on their packaging to further 'illustrate' the taste and values of the brand and bottle I guess. I wanted to use this opportunity to use a pen and do some illustrations which would be unique to each character/wine in my series. The layout style would be kept very formal with a colour palette of navy type/image against an off white paper stock. This would hopefully speak as a trusting established brand the customer could rely on for quality and depth of flavour. I also took a chance perhaps on creating a logo for t e permutations brand which was a hand drawn script, italic and underlined. I'm not sure if this really worked or not, but I played around with typography as the brand title for a while and the whole thing seemed very harsh with no real warmth to it. With the hand rendered script the overall feel was much more welcoming and friendly, it echoed the of perhaps a signature which seeing the project was all about celebrity theme and endorsements it seemed appropriate that the logo should mirror that.

These are the illustrations whilst still in the sketchbook and below are the mocked up print sheets for all four wines with the back and front labels. They feature a quote from each personality as a central focal point. Really, this could be improved drastically by making the point size a lot smaller and giving everything a lot more room to breathe.

The finished product printed, applied and photographed. It was a semi successful project but looking back at it I'm not very happy with what my label design, its not very accomplished I don't think. The year has been a large learning curve and I can definitely say that in most projects I would go back and do a lot differently. But such is the nature of university I suppose, at least I know it rather than thinking this is great work.