“New York has gorgeous garbage.” -Debbie Harry
The goal for this self-initiated project was to create a wine brand and packaging that would appeal to the counter-culture. A demographic who’ve been brought up with an anti-authoritarian, rebel spirit but is now a bit more mature and needs a bottle of wine that doesn’t make them feel like yuppies. The punk rock culture seems to embody this spirit so I directed my research there.
I focused on the early punk scene in America: Mid-70’s, New York City, where bands like the New York Dolls, the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Blondie were starting a revolution. This research inevitably led me to the mecca of punk rock in NYC, CBGB’s. What struck me most about CBGB’s is the vandalism. Every square inch of the place was covered in stickers, show posters one over another, and graffiti. At the time these show goers “defacing” the walls of this club, were all acting on their own accord but were actually taking part in a sort of collaborative art form. These walls are a physical embodiment of the punk rock scene, manifesting themselves accidentally by a collective teenage angst. This is why this imagery is so symbolic of the genre and why I’ve chosen this as my visual language.
