Typophile

Wine Company Redesign

angechilada

Okay, so I’m entering a side contest for a wine label re-branding, and I have a draft, but I really hate the typeface for the “Yorkville Cellars/2008” part. For the logo, the sumi-e style “y” had to remain part of the label; and the specific information listed on the label also had to be there. The logo image provided is pretty low quality, so it can’t be made much larger without looking grainy. I just wanted to know mainly opinions/recommendations for spacing of the type, or maybe some different (free?) typefaces that I could perhaps use for the text on the label.

I’m thinking of maybe centering the “Yorkville Cellars” as well, even though it’s kind of boring. The image for the wine is supposed to be not corporate looking, but more of a country, organic feel, while still being minimalistic. I was trying to maybe find a serif font that isn’t too rigid, but a little more playful? Please help. Thanks. :)

Draft: Yorkville Cellars

Alaskan

I was going to post a link for you, but it seems that website is crashed for some reason. In short, please don’t (I’m begging you) enter a design contest. Design contests are pure evil and devalue the design industry. It’s essentially a way for companies to get designers to work for free. It’s spec work. Don’t do it! You’ll be burned, badly. No respectable, professional graphic designer would do it because it compromises our ability to make a living.

From (the currently crashed) No-Spec.com:

Why Speculation Hurts

By Robert Wurth, Creative Director, Freshly Squeezed Design

When your company seeks out a new logo design, advertisement, brochure, or any other marketing collateral, what you’re really looking for is a solution to a problem. For example, you have just made a new product. Your problem is that no one knows about it, so you require a means to alert potential customers. You might conclude that an advertisement is the solution. In reality, the advertisement is merely the vehicle that delivers the solution, but the concept is similar enough.

Some companies advocate the practice of gathering a number of different designers or agencies to pitch ideas for a project. The way it works is that the company calls up several different designers and says, “We need a new ad. Come up with an idea to show us and if we like it, we’ll hire you.” If the designer is lucky, the company will at least have a creative brief, a short document explaining the problem, to send.

In the design community, we refer to this practice as speculative work. It requires a designer to put forth work on behalf of the company without any promises or guarantees of getting paid.

This practice has become popular because many companies erroneously view it as a quick and easy way to get the best ideas from designers. Unfortunately, requesting speculative design is a poor business decision because it caters to the lowest common denominator of design. It also forces designers to engage in the poor design practice of making snap decisions.

Currently, one of the hot books in the world of business and marketing is “Blink: The power of thinking without thinking” by Malcolm Gladwell. In Blink, Gladwell advocates for the inherent quality of decisions that are made in an instant, citing that often these decisions are just as accurate (if not more accurate) than decisions made after careful, conscientious deliberation.

However, within the book Gladwell also cautions that the process of snap decisions can backfire, sometimes drastically. The difference, he says, seems to be one of knowledge and experience. For example, you might come to me doubled over and complaining that your stomach hurts. I might make the wrong snap decision that it must have been something you ate and that you’ll be fine. A doctor, on the other hand, might make the correct instant conclusion that you have appendicitis and then examine you more thoroughly.

Gladwell’s explanation for this would be that the doctor’s experience allows him to instantly take in all of the subtle clues about your condition, allowing his mind to make a correct conclusion based upon very little data. Of course he would order more tests to be sure, but that’s not the point. Rather, the point is that I lack the experience and knowledge to give me a chance to make the same sort of correct diagnosis. I might have been able to guess right, but that would simply have been a matter of chance. Instead, my snap decision is based solely on my personal experiences — maybe I ate something bad once, and it gave me a severe stomach ache.

This is important because it relates directly to speculative work.

Inspiration never comes from just nowhere. It is the culmination of experiences stored subconsciously for the right moment to all click together. Speculative design work is an attempt to force inspiration without the benefit of experience. None of the designers are allowed the opportunity to get to know you and your business. They aren’t allowed the time to examine your market and industry. They simply lack the necessary data too allow them to make good, informed decisions about your marketing.

The result is that the designers are forced to develop ideas based upon their own personal experiences and preconceptions about you and your company. Without any research, or discussions with you to guide them, their ideas become less about substance and more about style.

If the designers are talented, they will certainly be able to come up with appealing designs. It’s even possible that one of them, through sheer chance, might hit upon a perfect solution to your problem, but that’s a gamble. In fact, it’s a gamble on two levels: first that at least one of the designers comes up with the right solution, and two, that you happen to choose that design.

Many business owners tend to distrust designers. They will hop from designer to designer, never satisfied with the work and becoming more and more jaded to the process. Often this is a result of poorly executed ideas that come from the speculative process. The knee-jerk reaction is to blame the designers for not hitting the right message, without ever considering that their own process might be flawed.

So, going back to the beginning, you still need an ad. Having read all of this, you decide not to put out a call for pitches, but rather you decide to choose one designer or agency and work more closely with them.

Now, the process is different. Before the designer ever gets to the idea stage, he or she comes in and talks with you to get to know you and your business. The designer is armed with materials you’ve done in the past, information about who your customers are, about who the competition is, and what the industry is like.

As the designer absorbs more and more information about your company, preconceptions are replaced with meaningful knowledge. When inspiration strikes, it has context that is relevant to your business and your needs, and that makes for a better design that caters more to your needs, and less to the whims of the designer.

If the website comes back up, I also suggest reading this article about Design Contests.

AK

Rafal Szczawinski

Alaskan, thank you very much for the link!
Unfortunately, I have noticed that more and more companies want to work with designers it terms of a contests. I guess it’s a side effect of a current financial crisis—they simply want less for more. (I don’t know what’s the situation in the US, but in Eastern Europe it is like that... Sad.)

Now, to not make it entirely off-topic...

angechilada
Concerning your design... The negative leading does not work well here. If you are going to enter the contest, go for something simple. As the typefaces go, it is actually pretty hard to find a good, reliable, classic serif font that is free. I can suggest trying out Microsoft’s Georgia. It has oldstyle figures, so the 2008 part would look nice... Also the kerning in YO is way off (the letters should be closer to each other). You should also let the type breathe. Letterspace an uppercase a little (Yorkville Cellars especially) and maybe make the type a bit smaller to give it more space?

angechilada

Alaskan - I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that design contests were held in such negative esteem; I had heard of the site through an acquaintance, and I just wanted to practice my design skills, more for fun that as a way to actually make money. Thanks for sharing those articles.

Rafal - I was actually looking at Georgia earlier on, but I was trying to find a serif font with a little more...personality? But thanks so much for the input, regardless. :)

aluminum

“I guess it’s a side effect of a current financial crisis”

It’s a side effect of there being enough suckers that actually take the time to enter them.

Rafal Szczawinski

angechilada

Unfortunately, personality comes at a certain price.
If you can simply afford InDesign or even Microsoft Office/Windows Vista, you will get some nice serif fonts included...
Georgia was designed with screen in mind and you can find it bland.
If you have Office 2007, there is a simply wonderful Constantia typeface included. Also designed for screen, but with some personality this time.

Or, maybe you have one of the most popular 2oth century typefaces, Palatino?

And, no matter what font you ultimately choose, the way you treat it is equally important. Those clashed R K C letters are visibly in pain...

aluminium

Yes. My mistake. Obviously, if nobody agrees and enters contests, the problem disappears in an instant.

angechilada

@ aluminum: I’m sorry that being a lowly Graphic Design student who has to re-take all of her gen-ed’s because of credits from a mediocre school didn’t transfer, and not being able to do any intelligent design classes probably for another year makes me a sucker, because I’m desperate to expand my portfolio and gain some experience. :/

angechilada

P.S. Rafal - Palatino does work better, but I withdrew all of my designs anyway. I appreciate the input! Thanks.

aluminum

“makes me a sucker”

That doesn’t make you a sucker.

But anyone that enters design contests is entering a sucker bet.

“I’m desperate to expand my portfolio”

Contests are simply not the way to do it. If you’re looking for a gig at a design firm, bringing in a selection of contest entries will NOT look good. There are other ways to get the portfolio filled out...personal projects...projects for friend/family’s businesses...working with a local non-profit...etc.

Alaskan

Angechilada,

It has nothing to do with being a student. There are several ways to expand your portfolio and gain experience without undercutting the profession you want to join. If graphic designers continue to work for free through contest work, how will you ever earn a living after graduation? Think about how you’ll feel when you can’t find a job, but you’re working 80 hours a week entering contests in the hope of getting paid.

If you want to gain experience and build a portfolio, work on your own identity. Do you have a personal logo? Business card?

Or, find a non-profit charity and volunteer to do some pro-bono work for them. When I was in college, I did several projects for a women’s shelter.

You can do work for a friend or relative. Do you know any musicians? Tell them you’d like to take a stab at making them a logo, poster, or album cover.

The projects I’ve suggested are far more valuable to your education than a contest could ever be. Graphic design is MUCH more than making something look pretty. It’s visual communication, and in order to craft the right message, you need to understand your client. A contest doesn’t offer any relationship to the client, so any understanding is minimal. It’s guess work! Good communication through design is NEVER guess work.

AK

J. Craigen

I second the remarks from Alaskan and aluminum about expanding your portfolio with personal work or nonprofit work, and I say that as a fellow student. I’m particularly fond of nonprofit work. There’s bound to be a local organization that would love to be able to sit down with a designer, but can’t afford to.

Locally, I’m currently working with a NP that provides services and resources to HIV/AIDS patients and low-income families. I have a good amount of creative freedom and get to (carefully) educate non-designers about the value of our work. When it’s done, I’ll have a solid identity system for my portfolio with a variety of elements in it, and a warm fuzzy feeling from working for these people (who do an incredible job at an incredibly difficult and stressful job, if that makes sense).

Captured from web.archive.org on 15 May 2009. view this capture