Josie Wall Scottish Graphic Designer

A vintage style truck in a duck egg blue with a collage and the words moon drops on the side.

BRIEF

To create a mid-market Californian canned wine product that's focuses on grocery retail. The target consumer is a mainstream wine drinker, who loves a G&T. A Sauvignon Blanc and a Merlot product have been developed, and now the brand needs to be created and developed in order to successfully launch with impact.

Context

The Ready to Drink category of drinks is a growing market, there's a consumer interest in wellbeing and guilt-free enjoyment. A large bulk of the RTD market is in cocktails, however there's a rise in canned wines and spritzers. This category is often retailed towards a younger market, so there's a gap for the 45+ consumer.

OUTCOME

A canned wine reflecting the cultural positioning.

The idea behind the brand leans into escapism and fleeting moments. This message reflects the current trends of digital detoxes, cognitive rest, and people's needs to connecting with each other. The story mirrors the surrealism of the collages and brings the brand name of 'Moon Drops', named after the grapes, into a more literal and widely understandable context. The collages depict moments of whimsy and fun, suggesting moments of fun and people connecting together. The product is positioned as less of a drink, and more as a moment or mood.

Surreal, collaged visual language.

The layout of the cans remains the same throughout the different variants, the background colours, the images, and the descriptions at the end of the stories changed to reflect the respective wines. The parameters for each would be a collage always containing a moon, and using retro images to create a fun, whimsical scene, and the background colours being pastel toned to not distract from the illustrations.

Having the collage visuals breaks away from traditional wine branding which often leans rustic, minimal, or heritage driven. It makes the can feel more like a piece of art or an editorial magazine spread. It reflects a modern, culture-forward wine audience, while also feeling recognisable and approachable to an older market.

A mockup of a book showing a black and white map, theres a black line detailing the trail going from point 1 at the esplenade through to point 7 at the townhouse.

A book without it's dust jacket on, the cover is an inky abstract pattern with the word 'Lido' as the title.

Classic and contemporary.

Despite being a canned RTD wine, the typography is reminiscent of traditional wine bottles and feels luxurious as it, again, mirrors editorial fashion magazines, this is important because the RTD format can carry a perception of being cheap or casual, and this counteracts that. The surreal imagery and the traditional type interact with each other to create the identity, the contrast mirrors the product experience - combining the ritualistic, traditional wine culture with the spontaneity of the RTD format. The cans have been chosen to be taller and narrower than traditional cans, reflecting the RTD cocktails available on the shelves at the minute.

It rejects the traditional high-end wine culture of connoisseurs, and feels more like a lifestyle brand or editorial piece. It's less about rules and more about the feeling.