“I need a wine label design”- this is a common phrase that I hear when I’m getting acquainted with a new client and project. While it is true, they do need a wine label designed, the unspoken yet more powerful portion of the statement should be, “I want to sell wine”.  And its important to differentiate between designing pretty packaging and designing packaging that successfully and precisely supports sales to the target audience.

Design just for designs sake, slapping a pretty piece of art on a product and calling it packaging, may indeed sell some product and have some success. However, in a well designed product every design element of the particular package should be chosen with a singular purpose in mind: encourage the target audience to interact with (and purchase) your product. In the absence of a purchasing the secondary goal should be to increase your brands visibility and perceived value.

Sometimes design can be hard, there can be a multitude of challenges between you and the final execution of the project. But few are more challenging to overcome than your own sense of correct design. This is how it was to complete the 6 West branding.

We went through stacks of variations of 6’s looking for just that perfect balance of design that captured who we are. Finally tired of revising we would call it off (just for a while). A couple of weeks would go by and we’d be back at it again, sketching, reviewing, pitching , sketching. When we’d narrowed the field down to a couple that we felt had the potential to represent the company, it would be a whole new round of refinement…And finally completed, we’d build a new logo that we felt sufficiently represented the style of the company. Of course this was only a momentary reprieve, from there we had to jump into all of the supporting materials, business cards, letterhead, contracts.