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.

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.

A successful package begins with a great partnership. You know your business, your product, and you have a vision. Finding a design partner to produce your package who:

• is experienced in your market
• listens and understands your vision
• has the expertise to bring your package to fruition
• will coach you on the pitfalls and is willing provide constructive criticism

can be the moment that makes or breaks your package.

We’ve all heard it before, a brewery releases a beer into the market and is slapped in the face with a cease and desist from another company for either their imagery or name. You ran your USPTO search and didn’t throw a dart at a hop pun, so what gives?

Beer isn’t safe within its own walls — the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office claims all alcohol under the same blanket beverage terms,