A wine brand popular in the '80s has been re-launched with unique labels produced using the Generative Design technique.
Victorian winery Mitchelton Wines has re-aligned with the wine brand Preece and rejuvenated the label design with the help of Melbourne design agency Future Days.
Future Designs has used GenDesign in the past, but this is the largest project the studio has done using the technique.
For the current release vintages, close to 31,000 unique front and back labels were printed (and the next Preece vintage release will see over 200,000 unique front and back labels printed).
Using GenDesign, the labels have been created via an algorithm which uses Preece’s wine and historical data, intricate line work, and natural colour palette.
There are 31,000 unique, generative labels that link each wine to a vintage, a region, a place, and its history.
The labels were printed by Multi-Colour Corporation, and it was no small feat considering each front and back set is a unique pair.
Data points captured included rainfall and monthly mean temperature for the site.
The phenological data points are specific to the grape varietal and vineyard site – budburst, flowering, veraison and harvest dates were all captured, according to the company.
The fixed data does not change year on year, and has relevance to the Preece origins and its home at the Mitchelton winery.
Points such as the founding winemaker’s birth year of 1903 and the height of the iconic tower at the Mitchelton winery at 55 metres were used as anchor points.
The data points influence both the horizontal and vertical line frequency, along with colour intensity and variation.
Named after Colin Preece, the founding winemaker at Mitchelton Wines, Preece Wines first launched in the late 1980s and became recognisable for its circular front label.
Preece wines have been out of production since 2011, when the Ryan family purchased Mitchelton from Lion.
The 2016 vintages are the first release of the PREECE range since the acquisition.
