I'm so pleased to be working with Hillside Winery, located on the Okanagan's lovely Naramata Bench in Penticton, BC. When I learned that our rebranding proposal had been accepted, I was as excited to tell Dave the news as he was excited to learn about it. You see, we both really like wine. Who doesn't right?

From the moment the Donkey Ink gang sat down with Lisa Baxter from Hillside, we knew this was going to be a fun project. We met in July 2011 over breakfast at the Sutton Place Hotel to fine tune the deliverables listing and the business-y details. (Seriously, the hash browns at the Sutton? Mental. You have to try them). Sometime between eggs and coffee, we agreed that Dave and I would head up to Hillside in a couple of weeks for an afternoon of "product research" and discussions about the design approach.

The trip was made on a hot Friday afternoon in August. I rented a convertible Mustang because... well, the 2011 Mustang is a damn fine (read: fast) car so it's what I rent when I need wheels and Zipcar isn't going to do the trick. We got up to Hillside and sat down to a wonderful lunch with the President, Duncan McCowan, the Winemaker, Kathy Malone, and Lisa. Let me tell you, the food in the Hillside Bistro is out of this world. Chef Rob Cordonier really knows his stuff. Everything I've seen come out of that kitchen in my visits, whether it's coming to my table or another, is prepared with the utmost of care and makes the taste buds dance and sing. I indulged in the Confit Duck Leg "Grilled Cheese" Sandwich. You haven't had a grilled cheese sandwich until you've tried that mother------. Unbelievable. I don't even remember what anyone else at that table had (but they all raved about their respective meals).

I should probably talk about the wine though; It is their raison d'etre after all.
My choice was the 2010 Muscat Ottonel. I'm not usually a white wine drinker, but this was an exceptional choice to go with my meal on a warm summer afternoon. That was followed by a glass of the 2008 Syrah to go with the variety of mouthwatering desserts that were brought out after our mains were finished. Fantastic.

In between raving about the lunch we were enjoying and the delightful wine we were following it up with, we did actually manage to discuss the overall design concepts. They wanted to keep the tower at the location as the mainstay of their brand, while modernizing the way it was presented across all of the various brand assets. When we were tossing out ideas and keywords, both the Donkey Ink team and the Hillside team found it funny that we were both saying things that the other was just about to bring up.

I won't talk too much more about the approach to the individual elements of this project as you can learn more about what we produced and how in the links to the portfolio entries below.

See the Hillside work categorized by discipline in the portfolio (these will open in new tabs/windows):
Hillside's Logo + Brand assets
Hillside's Ink + Paper assets
Hillside's Web + Interactive assets

Hillside is just now bottling its lovely 2011 Muscat Ottonel with the new labels we designed and they uploaded a video of the process:



Welcome aboard Hillside! It's a pleasure working with you. Also, I'm hungry and thirsty. Send help.

*Note*
The rotating images above should really be enlarged for best viewing results. Once enlarged, click and drag to see the whole image. Or you could, you know, visit the website to see the pages in their entirety.

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