Plan B Organic Farms

Simply put, Plan B is good for the soul. Not to mention the health and well being of our ecology, local economy and bodies.

Plan B Organic Farms in Copetown Ontario is a CSA that has been growing and distributing organic food to the local area since 1997 and is one of the areas founding and most influential share based organic farms.

Being that the philosophies and people behind CSA’s are so close to our heart, we’ve previously felt a little shaky and cautious while working on the Plan B brand, treating it as precious and consequently, quite honestly, choked with regard to the visual execution.

Recently, it came time time to refresh the look and better represent who this dynamic and ground breaking group of people were, as well as serve key information to existing and potential share partners (customers). A change for renewal for them and redemption for us!

We took a breath and sketched a series of illustrations that we could form and layer into a flexible brand fabric. The illustrations can be rearranged as a whole or in part or even isolated while still adding up to be visually unique and memorable for Plan B.

For the website we utilized a straight forward WordPress template rather than designing a custom style as we normally do. This allowed us to reduce production costs while focusing on other areas that would stretch the investment toward better communicating the product and ideas.

With the new site and CMS in place for Plan B, they can adjust their style of communication efforts to be more of the minute and relevant rather than reactionary — a start to assist in adjusting the perception of CSA farms from being behind the times or challenging to buy from, to being progressive and current.

Centro Garden
Live Outside Inside.

Centro Garden is the passion and brain child of local Burlington Ontario entrepreneur, Jason Pepetone. Jason grew up in gardening, following the footsteps of his father who established the family reputation of being among the largest and most progressive family of garden centre companies in North America.

Jason long felt that a change was needed in retail and in particular, within the garden centre business where he saw the passion for providing lifestyle and excitement in the lives of the customer was in danger of becoming a thing of the past, along with down to earth appreciation for craft, art and good design.

Consequently, Centro Garden was born as a reset — to bring simple enjoyment of the plant centric and craft inspired life, back to life.

Insite was asked to assist from scratch, to help boil down what the essence of the consumer experience could be as well as how to engage good design and craft in order to bring that outside world inside and offer it to the local community. Working together we developed a strategy for how the store would operate through philosophies of design and style to naming and graphics programs.

Centro Garden — Live Outside Inside was developed to envelope the ideals and communicate the simple concept of how exciting life can be when you blur the transition from inside the home to out on the patio and vice versa. The metaphor continues to further suggest that there is room in our lives for what’s become outside or fringe concepts of good design, art and craft. Lastly the brand hopes to communicate that there is room in your life for plant centric living. To restore our comfort for bringing the outside elements back into our homes and lives.

Centro Garden is a living design and style store that hopes to bring the real to life. Centro blends design and ideas with finished green centric goods. We’re a relaxed general store for design, art, and the indoor and outdoor garden.

We designed the modern rustic interior to be progressive and design oriented while focusing on creating a warm and down to earth appeal. All aspects of the environment had to be congruent with the brand essence since the whole is the offering and the brand.

To envelope these ideas, together we designed and hand built fixtures, shelves and cabinets utilizing reclaimed and vintage materials, much of which was recovered from the construction of our sustainable home. Trees that were cut down during construction were milled on site and stored that eventually became shelving and barn board fences became cladding for the checkout and bulkhead as well as chalk boards and shelves.

For the communication program, the store needed to have a flexible yet cohesive look that could be applied across many types of products and situations, inside and out. Casual stamps combined with an industrial machine tag metaphor were used throughout in various forms including pricing, information and hand produced business cards.

A flexible retail system was created for signage and information cards that accompany products on display. The simple board made from recycled mahogany is covered in a brand pattern application on the back and a branded info sheet is clipped to the front using a standard alligator clip. All info sheets are pre-printed blanks of various sizes that can then be imprinted by staff on site as required.

Interwoven with the store concept is their website which we created as a dialogue to tell Jason’s story while revealing the concepts and intent of the store’s philosophies. Currently still in blog format, the site will make a slow transition to more product centric story telling but in the interim, and perhaps permanently as a component of style and ideas, the blog will remain as the creative and inspiration outlet.

www.centrogarden.com

Ravine Sand & Gravel Wine

Ravine Vineyards, located in Niagara’s renowned St. David’s viticultural area near Niagara-on-the-lake, is steeped history.

Not only are the owners 5th generation farmers and descendants of loyalists that founded the area, but they are an embedded symbol of entrepreneurialism in the region as well. Their family has milled, farmed, canned fruit, mined gravel, made boats and industrial equipment as well as now run the winery estate with esteemed restaurant and event facilities.

With the success of their first launch of estate wines, there became a need to create a wine that added more depth and could round off the table. Ravine asked us to assist in creating a new brand that could express another part of their perspectives on winemaking — essentially as if it were from the newer generation that are co-running the winery today.

Ravine Sand and Gravel is the original moniker of the business that operated a few generations back and so it was natural to apply the full extended name to this release.

For the brand, we kept it simple, wishing to convey sophistication and attention to detail while being grainier, more elbows on table and boisterous than the parent line of wines. We relied on a bold type solution married to textures which were collected from the surface patina of the winery’s facility.

The logo was inspired by the original hand lettered door on the Ravine Sand & Gravel pickup. Hand painted signs have been a fixation of ours and so the opportunity to reflect this tradition was a pleasure.

The label is printed flexo using 4 colour process plus an underlay of spot grey on coated stock. We dulled the paper and added a rustic texture using multiple layers of matte varnish. The result is bright, rusty and in our minds cheerful.

http://www.ravinevineyards.com

Five Rows Craft Wine — Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine

We really enjoy designing labels for small batch wines as it opens up so much possibility when free of the constraints of volume application and materials. Also, the consumer’s relationship with small volume wines is more intimate and as such close-up and tactile. Not to mention, the wineries themselves don’t mind hand applying labels when there are so few to do!

When we were asked to design this label for Five Rows, a boutique winery located in the St. David’s Bench area of the Niagara Peninsula, it was unanimous that an option was to follow our initial signature package that identified the 2004 unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon — a mere 24 bottle release.

Our goal with the package was to position and treat the icewine as a traditional farm staple — milk, butter, eggs… and icewine. These products, though adorned with the brand and style of their producers, is typically practical and spontaneous in production. They often utilize a package format that suggests re-use as well as customization for small volume — all adding to the charm of the farm product.

Icewine has been traditionally marketed as a rare and highly coveted liquid to be consumed on occasion. Being lovers of the stuff, we’ve always believed the position should be of less occasion and more staple and that this position could be asserted without compromise of quality or price premium — Icewine is insanely labour intensive to create and as such demands a high retail price.

It was decided a folded, glueless, piece of paper wrapped tight to the bottle with a produce elastic would do the trick of communicating the utilitarian nature. The bright nectar colour of the wine itself deserved no less than flint glass for full colour which in the end also adds to the re-usable milk bottle feel of the package.

The label is essentially a carrier for winemaker notes on the production of the wine as well as origin. The initial release was digitally printed at low volume, hand cut and applied by hand with elastics similar to the remaining 1000 bottles. Much of the graphics are also hand drawn which is consistent with the Five Rows identity. The flint bottles were finished off with a hand drawn signature by Wes Lowrey the winemaker.

http://www.fiverows.com

Sometimes, when a family’s legacy and history is so colourful and deep, it supersedes those that continue to build upon it today. There becomes a steward like focus and lens through which everything is presented, masking the new generation.

Such is the case with the illustrious history of Niagara’s Henry of Pelham family estate and the Speck family that own and operate the winery while stewarding the family land.

Recently the Speck Brothers felt it was necessary to tell another side of the family legacy. Where the Henry of Pelham story and wines could remain an expression of the land and legacy — classically focused,  Family Tree should express the people; family, friends, neighbours and growers — those who have worked in the past to create the foundation for what the Specks are today, and those who toil today to continue family traditions and make great wine — a contemporary focus while upholding the quality standards Henry of Pelham is know for.

Everyone can relate — a Family Tree is really an appreciation for all those that have come before us to make us who we are, as well as a celebration of those who simply keep at today. For without these people and the love and dedication to family they exude, the legacy would rest.

The label is an illustration of a black walnut tree that rests on the Henry of Pelham estate property beside the historical family plot. The tree was planted in honour of the death of the Speck Brothers’ father and continues a Niagara tradition of planting black walnut which garnered the area’s reputation as the Black Walnut Trail back in the period of the foundation of Canada.

The foliage is simply layers of family names from the Specks, and other branches of Henry’s family.

We created the wine package and supportive website.

“Our wine will speak for itself.”

This sentiment from Francois Morissette was echoed throughout the development of the package design process with Pearl Morissette. Excellence in winemaking; from vinifera selection, to field practice, through every detail and process, Pearl Morissette has scrutinized and refined in order to make exceptional wine independent of cost as a burden.

How does one echo this philosophy in a package? Simplicity, elegance and fine typesetting modestly communicates that the contents within the bottle are the most important concept.

Francois Morissette asserts that the components of wine, the grapes, must be managed to do their best work; to be able to express their terroir and arrive to impart their unique character with the wine drinker without impedance. Our goal was to do the same. Allow fine paper and simple beautiful typefaces to introduce an elegant wine.

The result, for us, is refreshingly lovely and a standout from an ever filling room of loud talking wine packages.

Mike Weir Underdog Wine Co.

Believe it or not, Canadians share an indelible spirit and commonality — we are hard working, nose to the grindstone underdogs that stop at nothing to get the job done. Despite our modest stature, conservative stiff lips and ever apologetic disposition, we rise to the top when the game bell rings.

Mike Weir embodies this spirit and among his Canadian sport icon peers, stands out as the true Underdog. In sport as in wine, Canadians continue to stand up to the challenges, capitalize on timing and execute on hard work as did Mike Weir leading up to his win of the 2003 PGA Masters.

Mike Weir’s Underdog Wine Co. celebrates all of our achievements as Canadians — you, me, wine, design, sport, innovation — Canada is right there leading the way. Congrats to Mike Weir, Ontario wine and all Canadians.

The Underdog Wine is an extension to Mike Weir’s established and very successful wines of which Insite assisted in the brand creation and package back in 2004 (http://insitedesign.ca/brand-design-communicate/weir-wines/). We are particularly excited to have been invited to assist once again to produce the package for Mike Weir Wines.

The goal of the new Underdog Wine Co. wine and package is to express the passion, drive and spirit of Mike Weir in a less modest communication — to tell a different side of the Weir story inclusive of the drive and determination we can all relate to.

Insite worked with the Weir team from the naming stage through print. We believed strongly that there was current equity both in the established branding of Mike Weir Wine but also in the branding of the icon himself including the iconic black attire Weir was known for wearing on the big day during tournaments.

Stylistically we focused heavily on type usage to assist in asserting personality while telling the Underdog story on the label. Textural elements as well as embossing reflect the tactile quality of materials that celebrate sport history such as trophies, patches and awards. The result is what we hope to be a sparky and somewhat sporty option for appreciators of Canadian wine.

Website: http://www.underdogwineco.ca/