Imagine you own a wine label (neat, right?)
Once you’re done daydreaming about the
perks, think about the challenges you’ll
face in your endeavour (aside from trying
not to get high on your own supply too
often). You’re one of an estimated 2468
wineries in Australia. How will you make
your bottle stand out on an overcrowded
bottle-shop shelf?
For McLaren Vale’s S.C. Pannell, one of the secrets is putting a little
bit of esteemed winemaker Stephen Pannell in almost every bottle.
Well, on the bottle.
The winery’s logo, which has adorned most of its wines since the first
release in 2006, features a bold figure with arms raised, sprouting
vines and a pair of birds from its sides.
But the motif wasn’t what Stephen Pannell initially had in mind.
‘During Stephen’s first meetings with Melanie Les, a friend and
talented artist and graphic designer, he was laying all his ideas out
on the floor and flailing his arms all about excitedly,’ S.C. Pannell’s
Tom Grant explains. ‘But when Melanie came back, she produced
this almost-Aztec crossed with Mambo-style sketch of a little man
and Stephen said: ‘Well, what’s that?’ ‘And she said; ‘that’s you,
you idiot!’.’
The logo, which aimed to capture Stephen’s hands-on, hands-in-the-
dirt approach, has become a tad smaller on the label since, but has
otherwise remained very similar.What changes regularly, however, is the situation mini-Stephen often
finds itself in, particularly on the labels of its most vivid and heavily
illustrated range. ‘On the Basso (grenache) label, for example, Steve
is under the ground because it’s a low-sulphur, minimal intervention,
earthy kind of a wine,’ Tom explains. ‘Whereas the tempranillo is a
party and the rosé is in a rose garden. On the fiano label is actually
Steve’s wife, Fiona, and she’s in the ocean as a mermaid, representing
McLaren Vale by the sea if you like.’Tom says the design process behind this range (which features less
copy than the others because the artwork tells much of the story)
is complicated because ‘that’s the way Stephen’s mind works.’ But
he says whimsy is a mainstay of the range’s aesthetic — influenced
perhaps by Stephen’s love of Wes Anderson films. ‘If we decide a
wine’s going to be in that first (artwork heavy) range, Steve and I will
argue about what that might look like for six months,’ Tom says.
‘Then, we take it to Mel to interpret those ideas and it’s a back-and-
forth to get the colours right. Colours are really important to us, and
the texture. Again, there’s lots of back-and-forth (until) eventually we’ll
have a meeting of the minds and settle on it. That whole process can
take nine months. It’s a bit like birth — Steve gives birth and I have to
raise them!’ >Page left: Stephen Pannell photographed at the S.C. Pannell cellar door by Philip White in 2013. Above: Concepts for labels from Melanie Les of 3 Bags Full Graphic Design.