This was the first completely original wine label design I created at ACE Distributing in 2017. The only information I was given to go from was the name "Enchanted", that it was a red wine, and that it would launch in October before Halloween. The catchphrase "Taste the Magic" was also to be included on the back label and in promotional materials.

My first idea was a leafless tree whose roots and branches would form a scary face. I really love how the silhouettes of the trees look in the fall when the sun is setting and the sky is all orange, so I used that as inspiration. The font for the wine's name is Poor Richard, which gives a refined but playfully mysterious vibe.

The project manager then decided maybe a witch was a better image to use for the label, as it brought the idea of "enchanted" to mind more easily. I kept the silhouette motif but created an evil witch holding an apple instead. I'm a big fan of stained glass, so I used that for the background to give a mystical feeling, along with the label being the outer shape of old church windows. After that, my manager said the witch should be young and beautiful instead of old and evil, so I adjusted the silhouette to match.

However, my manager wasn't satisfied with how the design was going, so he asked me to try other ideas. I worked with a few more magical looking-images, even playing with the name to match the images, such as "Enchanted Castle", among others.

At this point, the general manager thought we should go back to the tree idea, but isolate it against a white background to make the design sleeker and more high-class. One of my coworkers also thought of adding a sideways witch image inside of the branches, as if she was riding a broomstick, so when you turned the bottle on its side to pour the wine, you could see the hidden witch more clearly.

The witch started out being white as if it was made from the breaks in the branches, then we settled on black to blend in more but still be obvious enough to see what it was. The project manager wanted the tree's roots touching one of the letters of "Enchanted". We also had to add the word "Vines" to the name since a wine already existed with the single-word name "Enchanted".

In the final design, the name was changed to "Enchanted Vines", the alcohol content and size were moved to the back label, and I added purple or red backgrounds for that mystical feel. I still think I prefer the lowercase "E" and "V" in the name, but my manager was adamant about capitalizing them. Overall, I was happy with these designs as my first project at ACE.

In 2020, my managers decided they wanted to redesign the Red Blend label so it was still magical, but wasn't strictly a Halloween-themed design, as the wine was really only selling around that time.

When I first started the redesign, I thought of a goblet or holy grail made out of a tree, to keep some of the theme of the original label. The project manager didn't like it too much, so my next idea was a kind of medallion with various symbols in it. 

In addition to the goblet, I created a few other symbols to go around the edge of the circle: a key representing secrets, an eye representing all-seeing knowledge, and a sparkle to represent magic. The background was still purple, but now it conveyed the image of a swirling, magical portal to another realm. I also added a white border to the design, which was meant to be a subtle open book, relating to fairy tales. This border would also make the label pop out more from the dark bottle.

Originally, the image in the middle was of the same tree from the old label, but my manager wanted an image of a vineyard to emphasize the "vines" aspect of "Enchanted Vines". He also wanted the font to be more fancy, so I changed it to one of my favorite serif fonts, Birch Std, which he was satisfied with. I am definitely more happy with this redesign than the original label.