Bottle rank: our print and digital design for wine wholesaler MMD

In the years since first starting to design for wine wholesaler Maisons Marques et Domaines, we’ve gradually honed an increasingly familiar, intentionally unusual, graphic brand language for the firm. Our idea was to ensure they always stand out from their competition while allowing for ongoing change and evolution. To achieve this, we suggested that annual updates of our visual theme could mean that year’s product and events had a narrative but were specific to a cycle. Then, on to the next one.

In terms of the design itself, inspired by the original MMD logo, we began by devising a series of geometric patterns combined with their colour palette. What began as a playful covers, evolved to a continuous visual thread. It means that as we update the design, a cycle begins with the turn of the calendar and January’s new catalogue as well as invitations to MMD’s highly popular Spring Icon Tasting.

Bottle lighting

Any kind of ongoing marketing to a long-term client base requires both the familiar and newness, concepts that inevitably, on some level, conflict. Then there’s also the fact that typically in wine marketing of any kind, certain familiar visual tropes such as turning vine leaves, bottles, wine splashes, dew-clad grapes or glass stains tend to abound. We’ve always liked to consider a range of approaches to design and visuals in our work for the wine trade – and for MMD we developed this aspiration in what I consider an interesting and inventive way.

While of course the landscapes of the firm’s different estates forms a central part of their catalogue, the covers of each client booklet they release, either digitally or in print, allow for a more eye-catching aesthetic.

Throughout 2024, a linear geometric design has been our graphic cover concept, offering a contrast to 2023’s Mondrian-inspired mix of rectangles derived from the MMD logo. In fact, resetting the layout from all that we had previously done proved rather a liberation. It gave us an opportunity to play with space, line and perspective in the various different concepts we worked on through the year’s design requirements, which we’ve just completed.

Bottle genie

In some senses, as I’ve come to learn, competition in the wine trade is a subjective matter. This is a personal theory, but surely when selling wine it’s the customer who decides what’s popular by dint of their taste – which inevitably varies each season; the commercial supplier is ultimately there to service that demand. From the standpoint of a design team, using a charismatic, stand-out approach for a wholesale business becomes the most important part of the brief.

The rhythm of the year is a combination of price lists, wine tastings and other events that enable Maisons Marques et Domaines to reach their client base with an incredible range of vintages beginning with their full range of Louis Roederer champagne and Californian sparkling wine.

In 2024 we’ve covered two drops of MMD’s price list, retaining a single cover for these while swapping around the colours to give some variety but not a stark difference. The two Icon tasting events, in March then September, have utilised varying designs that bring the graphic shapes into scale from narrow to wide bands.

Probably my favourite design of the year was the print design we completed for the Italy portfolio tasting in July. This blended a vineyard image and our graphic scheme which overlapped and under-ran the picture, framing it yet placing the information about the event front and centre. The most recently completed work has been for the Christmas stock where, for a more seasonal feel, gold lines intersected over a purple backdrop.

All in all, the designs speak to a really strong central theme that acted as a smart evolution of the previous years. The central marketing messages remain to the fore throughout and the whole look of each design hangs together as a set. They are all in service to the brand and ultimately the message achieves the central goal of defining striking print and digital design for a wine wholesaler.

Bottle washer

We’ve learned over the years that each new piece of work we complete for the wine trade helps inform the next. Often the reason for this is a contrast in business ethos other times it’s because of the product marketplace, or a completely different sort of management behind that new client.

Whether your business is wholesale, corporate or retail, we’d be interested in working with you with the goal of finding the best way of presenting your business. Our experience and creative process can help achieve your aims, working imaginatively to rethink your approach to design.

Call us on +44 20 7351 4083 or email direct to tell us all about it.