The University of Virginia turned 200 this year, and we were happy to help them design their commemorative bicentennial celebration print materials. Our directive was to make it feel like a party, within the University’s brand standards. And a party it was, with live performances by Leslie Odom, Jr., Andra Day, and the Goo Goo Dolls.

The commemorative program included a sculptured blind emboss of the bicentennial logo on the front tag, followed by a half sheet of vellum featuring Thomas Jefferson’s original drawing of the rotunda,

At the recent Wines and Vines Packaging conference in Yountville, CA we sat in on a Nielsen presentation titled “A Common-Sense Guide to Winning with Bottle Design”. While there were many excellent topics discussed, we would like to focus on the portion that listed the ‘6 Things Good Design can do for Wine’ and break down exactly how design can influence your sales.

For those of you who do not know, Nielsen meticulously researches and measures consumer habits to understand what they are watching and buying.

Afton Mountain Vineyards was our first Virginia wine label design, originally created in 2009. This year, after nearly a decade working together, we refreshed their label design. The die cut follows the lines of their logo design and maintains their color palette, to reinforce brand recognition, while presenting a new, fresh and modern package design. The label flows around the bottle, forming in a valley in the back, after the peaks on the front, which abstractly reference their skyline view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We often receive e-mails from breweries, wineries & distilleries in-planning asking for rough timelines to take into account as they start to plan their branding.

Often, start-ups are focused on the financials and forget that the branding process, which is just as necessary for successful launch, takes several months if you want to open with all of your ducks in a row. And, this really applies to any business, including body products or home goods.

This post is somewhere between a thank you note, a love letter and a blog post from me, Darcey Lacy, Founder and Creative Director of Watermark Design. I have been blessed with the opportunity to start a passion project and to grow it into an award-winning design studio & business over the last 10 years. I was just going to say thank you, thank you SO much, but I thought it would be more valuable to you to share a few things I have learned along the way as well.