What do art, photography or illustration have in common? They all fit in a bottle of wine. Label design in Spain is experiencing a burst of new graphic proposals at the service of the quality of the wines. There is an increasing number of studios and designers joining this phenomenon, people who through their talent contribute to establish the differences in the major Spanish wineries.
Criteria such as region or price are no longer sufficient to condition the decision of the user who buys a bottle of wine. In an increasingly visual world and market, the label plays a protagonist role when it comes to defining the identity of a brand and to differentiating the product. A wine is sold for its quality, but the wineries understand that they also have to commit to design and care for the image of their articles.This is a phenomenon that is intimately linked to the growth in recent years of the so-called wine culture that, besides attracting oenologists, wine makers, consumers and wine tourists, has managed to turn into an interesting field in which architects and designers can establish a creative dialogue with the wine.
It is therefore normal that in a country like Spain, with a millennia-old history of wine-making and currently consolidated as the world’s second-ranking wine exporter, a major change is occurring in the image of its wines, with labels of strong personality that tell a story and reflect the aesthetic ideals of the new generations of consumers. The approach to wine of this young public is free of pre-assumed codes and boasts a consolidated visual culture and tastes that are completely distanced from those of the classic consumer. Designers know this and are therefore using resources on their labels that are completely disconnected from the traditional image of wine. References to contemporary art, a visual play, the introduction of photography, the use of illustrations and typographic resources taken out of context or the incorporation of powerful colours are some of the contemporary approaches that affect both the image and the naming of the products and complete their identity.
The turning point
But at what time do Spanish designers and wineries begin to commit to a more illustrative and relaxed trend in wine labelling? The Catalan Xavier Bas establishes a turning point in the late nineteen-eighties, a time when many of the things that were anchored to the past began to change. “I was working at Taula de Disseny and we renovated the image of Raventós i Blanc with a highly typographical, highly Brossian proposal. It was the first time that in Spain anyone ventured into the image design for a cava winery”, explains. Others believe that the true revolution in label design was led by Fernando Gutiérrez and the bold graphic image created in 2003 for the iconic Dehesa Gago wine by Telmo Rodríguez. The label features a large white G on a black background, “an innovative typographic approach, restrained and conceptual, that reinterprets the classic symmetry through a contemporary optic” emphasises Iñigo Jerez from the Extra! studio. Later came the Vilosell wine by Tomás Cusiné, with a colourful label designed by Xavier Bas that represented “a turning point for our studio”. “Perhaps there were other coincidences, but it was as if this opened the doors to the possibility of making other labels that would completely break with the codes”, he adds. In this way, the wineries introduced the figure of the designer and began to perceive that the break with the style of the French label – greatly extended in Rioja wines—and the reformulation of the traditional icons –coats of arms, centred typographies, images of wine casks and vines, among other classic elements—was indispensable to communicate their business philosophy and that of their wines. “We are updating ourselves, there is an attitude of change”, points out Sergio Caballero, the man behind the 4 Kilos project and winery.
The different briefing models
The designers, in turn, are faced with different briefing typologies, depending on whether their clients are wineries with a lengthy history or small, far more experimental projects. When a major winery launches a product, the designer’s work is conditioned by an established public and brand codes that must be respected. Targeting a traditional public is more difficult for the designer, as in this case the design is not what incites to purchase, but rather tradition does, as well as the guarantee of a consolidated brand. Instead, new wineries can allow themselves to break with the more deep-rooted aesthetic, typographic and colour codes found in wine culture, and to capture the attention of a new public. Currently there are also major wineries – the Torres Winery is a good example—that boasts a range of wines in both these camps: products that target their traditional public and represent their main sales volume, and the new wines that target future consumers.
It is also important to differentiate between wines for mass consumption, with high levels of production of thousands of bottles, and “prescribed” wines sold in specialised shops at more exclusive prices. These wines allow the designer to create riskier labels, while mass-consumption wines maintain a more conservative style. “Mass-consumption wines could do much more if the major brands dared to”, says Bas. The solution for these cases is restyling, a labelling trend that reinterprets the classic codes through a more updated optic or aesthetic, reinforcing insofar as possible the elements of identity of the product. This practice, then, allows the product to evolve and to gain market share without losing a major part of its consumers.
The new labels and their finishes
“When it comes to devising a label, what we think of is how to evoke something that might have a connection with the winery’s project, with the name or with the wine itself”, explains Bas, who views labels “as book covers”.
The fact is that currently, far from selling purely descriptive or allegorical brands, the designers seek to show suggestive concepts and images while offering their personal interpretation of the wine-making world. “The approach to wine is emotional”, confirms the designer Daniel Nebot.
It is for this reason that many designers agree on emphasising the importance of establishing good three-way communications between themselves, the wine makers and the consumers, something that is then reflected in the design and personality of these labels.
They also agree that good design ends with the printed label. Technical advances such as the incorporation of offset technology in label printing or the implantation of self-adhesive labelling –previously they were glued on—has permitted establishing improvements in image quality as well as combining several labels or applying special stamping. Elements that just a few years back were technically impossible and too costly for industrial production. Thus, the paper used, the embossing applied, the volumes of ink, the screen printing or stamping are some of the elements and finishing details that give a label its quality. “We must work with good printers, otherwise there is a big drop in quality”, points out Bas.
Gráficas Vidal y Armadans is one of the most outstanding Spanish printing works dedicated since the late nineteenth century to wine labels. Their work consists in enriching the pre-sketch sent in by the designer, introducing technical improvements according to the printer’s technological possibilities. They also take an interest in knowing the principal characteristics of the wine, seeking to generate a label that is “sufficiently attractive yet sufficiently complicated to put that wine out of reach of the competition”, says Joan Armadans, the head of the printing works. “Although we can change the initial design of a label, we are not designers, only appliers, and our job is to give advice to prevent problems when the label reaches the printing machines”, adds Armadans, whose company boasts the most advanced technology in the sector. Another of this printer’s characteristics is that it has changed the trend of working directly with the winery and now does so with the designers. “I have always liked to discuss things with them”, says this printer. It is important that the designer understands the technical part, that he is aware that his design must then be applied to a bottle”, and to this end the printing works also concern themselves with developing new papers and finishes, thus offering the designers a better set of tools. According to Armadans, the formula to make a label stand out is obvious: “a good designer, good pre-printing and the best technological elements”. “In Spain we do not need to be taught anything when it comes to label design”, says the printer, and emphasises the professionalization of this market as well as the hyper-specialisation, specifically in Catalonia, of its designers.
The value of design and its future in wine
Can a good label, then, be crucial in the success or failure of a wine? “It is certain that the label can make a wine sell, but ultimately the content must surpass that which the label presents”, believes Sergio Caballero. In this same line, Daniel Nebot opines that “wine making occurs through the label itself, through society and its memory” but clarifies that “the label only sales once”. Xavier Bas, in turn, believes that “design helps to differentiate one product from another, one brand from another, to connect the product with people’s emotions, but there must also be a business project behind it”. “Design is positive when it is a good design, though there are not many about, and when it is accompanied by good marketing”, concludes Armadans.
It is difficult to predict the future of this sector, which has also been affected by the crisis, and is one in which the attitude is far more prudent. It is obvious, however, that wines increasingly need a good mage to differentiate themselves, and it looks like both the small and the large wineries have understood that they have a major ally in design.
The article offers an orderly approximation in the concepts of art, photography, typography, illustration, family, branding and classics to the renovated models of wine presentation in Spain.
