1849
FINE WINE WAS PLAYING IT SAFE.
WE GAVE IT A CREW.
In a category defined by châteaux, oak barrels, and intimidating labels, 1849 Wine Co. was built on a different premise, that premium wine could have a point of view, a voice, and a visual identity that felt like it belonged in a gallery in East LA as much as a Michelin-starred wine list.
The result isn't packaging.
It's a collectible object that happens to contain exceptional wine.
The logo
The logo wasn't designed. It was written.
1849 Wine Co. didn't get a wordmark. It got a tag, hand-lettered, ink-heavy, drips intentional, gesture direct from graffiti culture.
That's the entire brand tension in a single mark: the brutality of the gesture, the precision of the positioning. Raw enough to mean it. Controlled enough to sell it.
MAKE THE DISRUPTIVE FEEL DELIBERATE.
Make the art feel premium. Make five SKUs feel like a collection.
The Challenge
Goal: Position 1849 Wine Co. as the cultural challenger of the premium wine category — a West Coast brand built on the intersection of fine wine and street art, designed to earn credibility in both worlds without compromising either.
Challenges: Break from the dominant visual language of premium wine, crests, serif typography, estate photography, without sacrificing the quality signals that drive high-end purchase decisions. Build a system that could hold the raw energy of a world-class graffiti artist across five SKUs, retail environments, OOH, and campaign extensions, while remaining production-ready and shelf-coherent.
Benefits: A fully realized brand ecosystem spanning identity, packaging architecture, five-SKU label system, retail presence, and campaign collateral, built in direct collaboration with Saber MSK. A clear demonstration that luxury and street culture are not opposites. They're the same conversation, finally in the same room.
SABER MSK (RYAN)
The Man. The Myth. The Legend.
Saber MSK isn’t a brand illustrator. He’s one of the most recognized graffiti artists in the world, his work has covered the LA River, been exhibited in galleries internationally, and influenced a generation of street artists.
Bringing him into a wine brand required translation in both directions. His visual language had to be adapted into a reproducible label system. The brand’s premium positioning had to survive contact with raw, unfiltered street art energy.
That tension is the product. And it works.
EVERY BOTTLE IS A CANVAS.
EVERY LABEL IS A DECISION.
Five wines. Five individual artworks. One uncompromising system. Every label was built from scratch: color, substrate, texture, embossing, foil, die cut, each decision made to earn its place, not fill a template. The paper has weight you can feel. The embossing catches light you didn’t expect. The die cuts break every convention the wine aisle thought was sacred.
In collaboration with Saber MSK, we weren’t designing labels. We were making objects people would keep long after the bottle was empty. Disruptive by design. Collectible by execution. Different because the category had no choice but to catch up.
Not different for the sake of different. Different because the category needed it.
Every effect, every finish, every material decision was in service of one brief: make a bottle of wine that stops someone mid-aisle, mid-conversation, mid-scroll. A bottle that doesn’t need a sommelier to explain it. A bottle that speaks the same visual language as the art on the wall of a gallery in Silver Lake or the side of a building in Downtown LA.
The result isn’t packaging. It’s a collectible object that happens to contain exceptional wine.
FOR THOSE
WHO KNOW.
No explanation. No education. No hand-holding. 1849 Wine Co. doesn’t persuade, it recognizes. The brand speaks to people who already understand that culture and craft aren’t opposites. They just hadn’t found each other in the wine aisle yet.
Until now.
