Vanguard Wines is 'experimental at heart', producing textural and innovative wines that are inclusive, enticing and push the boundaries of wine-making.
It was a total pleasure working with the gang at Vanguardist Wines on these labels. The aim was to reach a younger audience of curious-minded wine-drinkers, attracting classic palates and less educated drinkers alike. Both are keen to try something new or expand their knowledge of wine.
These are wines of integrity, focusing on fruit purity, precision and organic production, handled with minimal intervention. The overall vision of Vanguard Wines is 'experimental at heart', producing textural and innovative wines that are inclusive, enticing and push the boundaries of wine-making.
This forward-thinking nature needed to be represented in the character designs.
The Imagery
Throughout the ideation process my aim was to represent La Petite Vanguard as the little guy - strong, imaginative, intrepid, resolute and on the forefront - reflecting on an initial concept of the lonely military adventurer, but with a distinct personality for each wine.
I took some inspiration from the medieval military source of the terms vanguard and avant-garde and expanded upon those concepts in ways I hoped were charming or humorous and would appeal to the target audience.
The Layout
Once I had a general sense of the characters, I moved on to creating rough concepts of the packages, demonstrating the environments and positioning of the text elements. The composition of the illustrations changed quite a bit in the final versions. This was to both create a greater sense of unity and consistency, and also ensure the characters and details were legible on the small label size.
Into the Future
I have been pleased in subsequent seasons to develop new colour-ways (easy as with vector graphics - that’s why I love ‘em!) and even new characters for the fine folks at Vanguardist. Cheers!
