One of my clients sponsors two wine walks a year. Grapes, grape leaves, a wine glass, and sometimes a bottle are used in the posters. Many of these assets I have reused several times which cut down on time and labor.
When I sat down and thought about this year's Fall poster, I realized I didn't want to have the same look. Sure, I wanted to reuse the assets but wanted a different design. Doing the same thing over and over again can be boring, the passion ebbs, and the work can suffer, get sloppy. This is a dangerous attitude for a designer. If you ever find yourself feeling this way about a design step back from it and Do. Something. Different.
Everyone represents red wine in wine walk posters including me. Red is a commanding color and can easily be used as a focus. But the wine walks feature red and white wine. Why not use white wine for the poster? Why not white grapes and white wine in the glass?
Everyone represents red wine in wine walk posters including me. Red is a commanding color and can easily be used as a focus. But the wine walks feature red and white wine. Why not use white wine for the poster? Why not white grapes and white wine in the glass?
What about going for a different appearance? I decided to emulate one of my favorite art styles, Art Nouveau.
I looked again at images of grape leaves and wine glasses. I especially looked at white grapes and white wine in a glass. And a lot of Art Nouveau posters were perused.
The wine glass was first used in the Spring Wine Walk poster of 2014, again for the Fall, and again for the following Spring. I liked it quite well and decided to keep it but change the color.
Note the grapes, grape leaves, and vines in the 2015 Spring poster. These I used in the new poster.
One of the grape leaves I blew up, changed the dark green to more of a yellow green with shading, and added more detail. One grape was copied into the new poster. The red was replaced with a yellow green and the highlight was blurred a little. Then it was saved as a symbol and copied over and over again.
The wine glass was the most challenging. It needed to be clear yet show there was white wine in the glass.
A lot of gradients and blurs were used overall in the design. The wine glass, grape leaf and grapes were outlined. A heavier stroke was used on the wine glass to help it stand out.
The end result was well received. The client said it looked very elegant which is what they especially wanted for this Fall's advertising of the event.
