Myer Farm Distillers, Gin, Photo by Andrea Murray, Label design, Q. Cassetti
I have gotten phone calls, two actually, derived from the work I did for MyerFarm Distillery. Myer Farm is a family owned/run estate distillery made from their own organic grain. It really is quite something--and done really well from doing it right, right off the bat. Beautiful building, hard working/ inspired people, an attention to detail that in my world means 'sounds only a dog can hear" type of focus. I had the pleasure of helping them define their brand and establish a very strong look and feel for the company that allows for room to have a look for the clear/white products, a look for the browns and some area for flourishes if they want to experiment with flavors, twists on the pure distilled expecteds (gin, vodka etc). The work started as an exploration about what was right. As the family had had this property in their family way way back (probably when they named the counties after Greek and Roman celebrities)--I started with a clean take at Victorian. I gave them a few other twists and then decided to give them a clean, almost Scandinavian/ pulled back, lotsa white space approach that might marry well with the clean-ness of their new building and tanks. Another thing that was important to all of us was the ability of the line to keep a strong brand tie in..so on a back bar, the bottles would "represent" the family while still maintaining context within each section of the bar (gin with gin, bourbon with bourbon, vodka with vodka). The only place (besides a home bar) that the collection from white to brown would be shown together would be the tasting room. They liked the scandia design--and off we were to refining it and moving it to incorporating simple, one color Q illustrations in with the name and similar typographic lock up on each. Nice, clean, distinct.
So back to why we were talking. Well over a year ago, it struck two parties that they liked my work for Myer Farm and wanted to work with me on new labels/logos for their products. One is a refresh of a solid wine on the market, a keystone of this winery's line, but not representative of the truly lovely, higher end wine they are producing. it is a fun wine to take seriously--and feel that a look see might be in order. It is a wine that would be refreshing with a lemon sorbet, or a ladies lunch of fruit salad, date nut bread, and little cakes. It is polite, sweet, but not lacking in sophistication. It is not "smart", nor does it have gravitas.. It is a bit sweeter and sassier...but still--it should not be a joke or party til you puke orientation. Should be fun for me...as it needs to be serious and yet light. Beautiful but not severe. The girl next door--no divas allowed.
The other project was from a couple who have bought land and a house to buy hops and start brewing. They are a cool pair--and are moving from South Florida to the land of ice, snow, ice wine, cider apples, pulled pork, great rye flour, Rieslings and hops. They too, carried a Myer Farm card around for a year and made the call to me just this week!. They said in graduate school, that potential clients may have you sitting in their files, or pockets waiting for the right time to happen. And then it does. Lightening struck twice this week. We will see. The research has been a gas...so the designing and illustration should be fun too.
The Piggery labels (a farm to table enterprise) for a whole slew of labels are almost ready to be completed. They took comps to the Fine Foods Show in NYC and got very positive response to the clean, white, two color labels (with some cute typographic things) and are coming up to speed about how to work with and read the input from the USDA. Repeat after me, "Nothing is ever simple". We have reworked the files well over 6 times (two of them being a complete redo). Heather and Brad brought us a glorious collection of products to try (for dinner tonight).
I have done new products for Myer Farm and Redbyrd. I just finished up two new hard ciders coming on line this year. More awaits in the cannon. More to share with you.
Time to ice my ankle. Yikes.