Building a first-of-its-kind art-driven identity for Houston's premier orange wine destination — where every bottle is a collector's canvas.
Merrilee came to us with an unusual challenge: they weren't just launching a wine shop — they were launching a new cultural idea. In a market saturated with rustic vineyard nostalgia and dark masculine cellar aesthetics, Merrilee wanted to do something genuinely different.
They wanted orange wine — complex, ancient, misunderstood — to feel accessible, artful, and alive. The brand needed to reflect the wine's character: unconventional, layered, worth discovering. And it needed to work at every scale, from a glass door logo to a bottle label to a cork top.
The core tension we had to resolve: how do you signal sophistication without exclusion? How do you honor the art and culture of winemaking while reaching an audience that's still learning?
The wordmark is the brand's soul: a fluid, hand-drawn script that moves like wine poured into glass. The trailing tail — extending beyond the final letter — suggests openness, generosity, and a story still being written. "WINE HOUSE" grounds it in a pill-shaped badge that intentionally contrasts the organic mark with structured restraint.
The boldest decision we made: treat the label as a rotating art gallery. Each vintage year features an original work of art — abstract expressionism, contemporary painting, action art — behind a consistent slate frame that anchors the Merrilee script above and the year below. The result is a bottle that collectors return for, not just a wine they repurchase.
Every touchpoint carries the mark. The cork cap disc — the last thing visible when a bottle is stored — carries the Merrilee initial script in a deep wine-red on crisp white. It's the detail that rewards attention: a reminder that this is a brand that cares about what happens even when nobody's watching.
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