Outwine branding - Identity
Outwine is an online wine store with door to door delivery of specially curated Portuguese wine.
The challenge was to create and manage the store’s digital brand.
For this purpose a design venture was established and design and business merged exclusively for a little over a year.
The challenge for design was to build, manage and communicate a brand with the goal of gathering as much audience as possible around the core of the business, Portuguese wine.
Recently and particularly in the English language, the at symbol has seen several evolutions in its usage and consequent meaning.
However the symbol’s usage dates far back and has adopted many meanings and usages throughout history, some of it is both interesting and relevant for our research.
Historically, the symbol can be traced back to Portuguese and Spanish 16th century. Used as an abbreviation for a unit of measure — the arroba — of particular importance to standardize a quantity, roughly 15Kg and consequently a price for goods, mainly wine. This unit is still used today in the trade of some agricultural produce.
Today the at symbol is used commercially as an abbreviation for the expression at the rate of. However, it has been most commonly adopted by computer languages, with particular relevance in the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) as an abbreviation for the at the domain expression.
Social media has also seen some use for the symbol, to indicate a “handle” and it attributes interactivity.
Main logo
It should be used preferably in printed and institutional materials.
Its usage should be privileged in regards to the other options.
Secondary logo
It should be used preferably in digital materials. It's existence is intended to replace the main logo whenever choosing it may diminish its values.
Its usage should be privileged in regards to the other options across digital touchpoints.
Color palettes
Institutional color palettes and complementary palettes.
Institutional color palettes should be used to express the brand values whenever its full identity cannot be expressed anywhere else or in any other way.
Complementary color palettes are colors that when combined with the institutional palettes will complement its values and cooperate to express the brand’s values.
These should be used across touchpoints where the brand is properly contextualized and well defined and can be safely used as a supporting visual vocabulary.
iconography
Some iconography has been specifically created to be used as complementary visual vocabulary. Its effectiveness and meaning varies across touchpoints and context.
For a streamlined usage, a comprehensive semiotic table was created with a color code to signify its context and thus its most appropriate effectiveness.
Some iconography’s intended context is across internal touchpoints, other is across public touchpoints.
