Irina finds her feet…and the grapes!

Branding and product packaging
Earth Dharma Winegrowers
Jackson, Maine

Heather Selin (full disclosure: my sister) and her husband Dave McDaniel conceived of a highly original and authentic concept for naming their first vintage of wines. The namesakes are the children of their close neighbors, three sisters named Irina, Theodora, and Vita, who often visit the Earth Dharma farm and vineyard.

My sister supplied a creative concept for the first label, Irina, and asked if I could clean up the typography and layout. I said I could, but as I started to work on the label I found myself asking, Where's Irina? Irina's name was on the label, and the artwork featured beautiful, lush shades of purples and reds. But I didn't see Irina herself.

Heather is a talented creative in her own right. She had aspirations of being a fashion designer after high school, and designs and crafts jewelry under her Glad Girl brand, in addition to helping run the farm and winegrower businesses. I thought Heather could improve the concept to tell a story about Irina. I suggested starting with words instead of images—Who is in the story? What are the relationships? What is the theme?—and then writing several short stories, just a paragraph or two each, that ideally lent themselves to imagery. By writing authentic stories based on experiences (even idealized ones!), memories, and especially relationships, it becomes easier to reveal storylines that resonate.

She ended up knocking it out of the park. Heather created her own sketch of a small girl reaching up to pick a cluster of grapes. Now the viewer is challenged to ask: Who is Irina, and what is her relationship with Earth Dharma? Perhaps more important, the image doesn't answer these questions directly but leaves room for the viewer to imagine their own story—maybe even one they can place themselves in. As a bonus, Heather saved the business roughly $500 in licensing fees by replacing the original artwork with her sketch.

Once Heather created the sketch, I vectorized and colored it using Adobe Illustrator, crafted a new wordmark, and revamped the layout, typography, and color palette. At last, Irina had found her feet…and the grapes!