45. TEMPLIN BRINK DESIGN
“The client came to us with the name Michael Austin and that was about it. It was a brand new winery, with wine soon to be bottled, so it needed a label. In talking to the clients we found out the name originated from the two founders’ middle names,” says Joel Templin of Templin Brink Design.

Approached by Patrick McNeil and Craig Becker of Michael Austin Wines, this open-ended project turned into a whimsical, fictional trip down memory lane. Templin introduced the idea of creating a fictitious character named Michael Austin and incorporating narrative tidbits from his life on the labels, inspired by the real lives of McNeil and Becker. The winemakers loved it. “We knew we had to figure out what to do with Michael Austin, since people didn’t know who he was. We had to have fun with it and that was our main goal,” says McNeil, the “Michael” of Michael Austin. “There’s a growing number of young people buying wine, a younger generation, and that’s who we are appealing to here.”

Templin agrees. “It’s not always appropriate but in this case it seemed to make a lot of sense to really zig while others zag” The narratives are not something you’d normally see on wine labels, but they turn the bottles themselves into collectible art objects. Keep on the lookout for four designs, each with its own unique name, illustration, and outspoken personality.
Lacey Muszynski