Description

I had the chance to help a local vineyard in the region around Stuttgart Germany to find a new identity for their range of wines. I always loved the idea of learning more about wine and the wine culture in general.

Problem

The winemaker Siggi Kraft would like to bring his wine closer to a larger audience in the region around Stuttgart. However, he doesn't sell nearly as much wine as he produces.

understanding

The vineyard is in Siggi Krafts family for decades. He took over the winery from his father producing wine on the side as a hobby. The relaunch of his wine should be a first step into the wine world and to be able to make a living from it.

With a little workshop at the beginning, I tried to figure out the current situation and where they want to go. I found out that this is a small private vineyard that grows its vines organically and picking its grapes by hand. Siggi Kraft also studied geology which makes him an obsessed guru about the different kinds of layers of terrain which is very important for the wine to get his unique character. I took a view questions out of the workshop.

- For what does the F in the logo stand for?
- How can we sell and communicate the wine?
- Who wants to buy this wine?
- Which quality has the wine?
- Where can I buy the wine?

Ideation

Looking at the old label I realized we need to change the logo first and build a visual identity on top.

For what does the F stand for? This was the hardest problem for the logo to solve because it’s a physics joke for F = Force translated to german resembles Siggis last name Kraft. He wanted to hold on to this idea and I respected it and tried to integrate the F as smoothly as possible.

Final design

With the wine glass as an outer shape forming the two-hilled vineyard, I knew this is the right way to go.

My wife and I did a wine test­ing a cou­ple of years ago that I found very fas­ci­nat­ing. It was maybe a lit­tle bit es­o­teric, about tast­ing col­ors but the idea of tast­ing col­ors stayed in my head and I pitched this, mak­ing the taste of the wine vis­i­ble with one ex­pres­sive im­age to Siggi Kraft. They loved the idea and I went on with it. What I did was a very ex­plo­rational teast­ing of the dif­fer­ent wines try­ing to fig­ure out their spe­cial­ness and sim­ply painted it. 

The re­sults were very in­ter­st­ing and they liked the idea of seeing this im­ages and also think­ing about color and taste of the dif­fer­ent wines. This idea was made to stick and Sig­gie Kraft also wants to make wine­tast­ing events out of it.

outcome

This was a real passion side project to me and made me feel good helping people in need giving them a chance to survive in a very challenging wine market.

designing for free

Since my studying time people always sad to me that I should never do designs for free or for your family. I learned that sometimes giving your expertise for free at some point also pays back in different ways.

Communicating Design for non designers

It was a challenge to communicate design language through a high standard with clients that don’t know and care much about design and how it can help them grow their business.

Guide all the way

Currently, my duty is fulfilled but not staying in the production line and making sure that the result matches the expectations is very important.