Myconsonant Winery
what is myconsonant winery?
Myconsonant Winery is a wine delivery box that specializes in creating wines that pair with a myriad of different edible mushrooms. Pair our syrah with an earthy portobello, our Rosé with a tangy morel, or our Pinot Gris with a light lobster mushroom.
Our aged, Napa Valley grown wines are sure to give you and your spore of choice an elegant and harmonious experience.
Even the company’s name, “Myconsonant”, is a showcase of harmony within itself - blending together the words “mycology” (the study of mushrooms) and “consonance” (a synonym for harmony)
Aesthetic direction
When beginning my research and moodboarding, I knew I wanted the wine packaging to have a luxury feel and contain a unique contemporary visual appeal that would bring a special uniqueness to the brand.
After some thought, I decided to source Victorian etching illustrations of grapes and mushrooms from Dover Books and collage them by hand and digitally. The Victorian etching would bring the luxury feel while collaging them would bring the contemporary visual appeal.
Typographically, I knew I wanted something to compliment the luxury feel of the brand. However, I didn’t want a standard Bodoni or Didot nor did I want a standard script. I wanted something that contained the best of both worlds: the formality of a serif, with the decorative, luxury qualities of a script. I eventually settled upon a typeface called Glitten because it contained both the aforementioned qualities and unique ligatures that would compliment the wine label’s aesthetic. I then chose Centrale Sans for my body copy so that both the Glitten, and the aesthetic of the wine label would have room to shine.
Lastly, for the names of the wine, I had the idea to implement hand-lettered type. At the time of this project, I was experimenting with my unique illustrative style so I figured I would give it a chance to shine within the wine labels.
After going about this first round, I quickly realized the pitfalls of my initial design. The collages weren’t visually compelling and the flow of typographic information wasn’t arranged in a coherent or compelling way either.
Thus, I decided to switch from a horizontal to a vertical flow of information, give more contrast to the collages, and include elements of color to the wine names to give the labels a sense of subtle eclecticism. Additionally, I actually drew my wine names in Procreate rather than using a digital hand-lettered typeface to give each bottle its own uniqueness. A duotone color effect was incorporated within the collages as well to give the labels both a universal through line and more visual interest.
Lastly, since it was increasingly difficult to find a visually compelling victorian etching of the enoki mushroom, I changed the enoki mushroom (far right) to an oyster mushroom due to its unique shape and similar flavor profile that could be paired with a wine like a Pinot Noir.
When it came to the back labels, I wanted them to follow a similar visual and typographic style but be more informational than visually conceptual.
I also wanted each wine to have its own back label that provided information about Ecovative’s mycelium initiatives as well. That way the customers are given more context into Ecovative’s mission and upon enjoying their wine, can conduct their own inquiries into Ecovatice if they so wish.
The packaging
When it came to designing the box in which the wines would be shipped in, I wanted to create a minimal yet luxurious design — something that would compliment the wine’s eclecticness and maintain brand consistency. Fortunately, with the aesthetic of the wine already determined, it was much easier to create a design for the box. I went for a Roman-classical inspired design that would contain the same harmonious visual and typographic nods that the wine utilized.
I also decided to include one final design element and created two insert cards that would be placed on top of the mycelium packaging shell that would give background information on both Ecovative and Mysonconant as entities. That way the story behind the collaboration of Ecovative and Myconsonant is given more context, and said context is being communicated with primary importance as the cards will be the first thing that the customer sees once the product is opened.
Finally, during the staging process in Adobe Substance Stager, I took some creative liberties with the wine bottles and added a lowercase “m” on the top of the bottles to give the wine labels a unique form of branding application.