Objective

Every year hundreds of thousands of UK graduates mark one of the defining moments of their lives, and the gifting market around it stops at flowers, champagne, chocolate and novelty. The occasion is enormous and the products sold into it are interchangeable.

The brief was to convert an emotional moment into a commercial product rather than the other way round: a keepsake that would stand up in gifting, hospitality, retail and direct-to-consumer, and would read as neither university merchandise nor a joke present.

Creative response

Product concept, proposition, brand and packaging design for WL Distillery, County Durham, taken from opportunity through to production-ready label artwork and point of sale.

• The proposition. To The Next Step: a sophisticated keepsake rather than a souvenir, with the tone set explicitly as confident, warm and celebratory, never gimmicky
• Concept development presentation. The opportunity, the familiar playbook it displaces, and the product that answers it
• Bottle and label system. Front and back templates, and finished 700ml artwork carrying its own barcode and statutory information
• Three seasonal expressions from one label. The Standard in navy as the year-round flagship, Summer Honours in burgundy and Winter Laurel in forest green as limited releases, a single print system, three straps
• Shelf line-up. Cream, navy, burgundy, forest and matte black, worked up as a range rather than a single bottle
• Presentation gift box. Navy, foiled wordmark, lift-off lid
• Retail point of sale. A hangtag carrying a cocktail recipe, and a sprung shelf wobbler
• Hero product render. Bottle, neck strap and foiled top

The colourway system is the commercial idea as much as the design one. Three seasonal editions off one label means one print run of the expensive part and a strap change for the rest, a range on the shelf without a range's tooling.

Everything was taken through to the point where it survives contact with production: barcode, volume, alcohol content, and artwork that works on a bottle rather than only on screen.

• The proposition. To The Next Step: a sophisticated keepsake rather than a souvenir, with the tone set explicitly as confident, warm and celebratory, never gimmicky
• Concept development presentation. The opportunity, the familiar playbook it displaces, and the product that answers it
• Bottle and label system. Front and back templates, and finished 700ml artwork carrying its own barcode and statutory information
• Three seasonal expressions from one label. The Standard in navy as the year-round flagship, Summer Honours in burgundy and Winter Laurel in forest green as limited releases, a single print system, three straps
• Shelf line-up. Cream, navy, burgundy, forest and matte black, worked up as a range rather than a single bottle
• Presentation gift box. Navy, foiled wordmark, lift-off lid
• Retail point of sale. A hangtag carrying a cocktail recipe, and a sprung shelf wobbler
• Hero product render. Bottle, neck strap and foiled top

The work