#6 - Seems more like a feature film rollout or production company. it does convey richness to me. #4 - Interesting. Really like the text over text: clean modern emphasis on Véraison. I like the black over gold. Not sure about the swan...maybe stylized grapes incoporating Vs like the Ns in Nina by that cartoonist Al Hirshfield?
#81,#82, #83 I like these but maybe a little fussy. I like the differnt fonts used in the name, but Veraison is getting hard to read. I prefer the lighter coloured ones. I could easily see them designating the two different wines we produce.
72-74 too fussy on the name. I think a frame might work, but I'm not excited about the corners. The grape bunch is better on 72 but even more stylzed and simplified like the swan might work.
Wow. Greate work on 95-97, nice collage of the pictures. Lets kill the V for the moment. I think I like the softness of #97 Also fantastic work on #99 and #100. Lets back away from the grape bunch at the moment. If I brought it back, I'd change the leaf to a Cab. Sauv. varietal Did the line separator between the words not work in the 95-97 range? If so I'd add to #97.
I like the colouring in #98, but I think you need to save the swan for Klein Genot's Black Swan label. I think it is beautiful, but I don't think it will work on this contest.
Try combining #82 and #103. Use the fonts and line from #103, that nice soft gold you've used. Kill extraneous graphics except possibly the outer merlot leaves. use the colour pallet form#103, and put the image in the inner circle. just notice the colour variation in the name in #104. Like it but not sure if it meets the elegant brief. I wish we could see some of these in more detail.
#106,#108,#109,#110 - Like it, but in this brown tone, I think #109 is the best. My comments above were expecting the colour pallet of #103 with the words in the middle of the oval, but I guess the words got lost against the mountain and vines.
See latest brief in Contest Discussion. Don't kill me. These look great. I like #123 and #121 the best. I like the poetic license with Est. 1820. I think I would use that space to designate the Year. 2006 was our first vintage.
new note on #99, I brought it forward on the ranking because it hits my latest directive. However, not sure we would go for a grape motif. Could it get as stylized as the swan?
I've asked a whole load of friends to comment. Your designs keep coming up. See one comment below. "Hey Steve—here are my favorites: #98 (the swan just spoke to me/I did a little google search and found out all sorts of things—they mate for life/tons of lore surrounding them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan#Role_in_culture (a lot related to change-ugly duckling etc just like Verasion) and it has an elegant/simple/modern look—just like you guys!
I also liked #99 as it was also elegant/simple/modern and had the grapes which is part of the name.
#151 - I think I'll take this bottle to a Grateful Dead show. Too flowery for a serious Cab. Otherwise I like the simplicity of it. #149 & #148 - at first glance, I had a negative reaction - too busy. On closer examination, I liked the richness and detail, maybe it's just the colour. Hold off on changes or mods. until I sleep on it.
#149 & #148 - It's unique, and has a richness of detail and old world with a bit or new. I think too flowery. I like the crisper, simpler, designs for this label. Amazing work. If I can think of elements to borrow from these, I'll edit this post.
Normally I comment and rank on order in, but... nice colouring. Fix the spelling mistake & withdraw #191, and resubmit. I like #191. If I rank highly a misspell everyone will do it.
#192. Like it. Nice work. However, lets move back to #99. As we look at the simplicity and elegance of this design, we'd like to work a bit more with this one. We like the style of the grapes and the relationship of the logo to the grapes. Can we try a variation where we move the grapes over to the right and use the vine tendril to form a 'V' to the left so that we can change the label depending on when we want to produce the V series or the Q series.
#219-#221 - Nice shading on these. Not so thrilled with the grapes. I think they need to look more like actual grapes ortherwise people won't know what the hell we're making this stuff out of.