Naming and label design for a white wine from the volcanic islands of the Azores, Portugal.

The Azores are one of the wine world's best kept secrets. Vines grown in hand-built currais of volcanic rock on UNESCO-recognised land, battered by Atlantic wind and salt spray, producing whites of extraordinary mineral depth. This is Verdelho from Ilha do Pico, DOC Açores: crisp, saline, alive.

MAROMA is the word used in the Azores for the giant oceanic manta ray, a creature that has been moving through these waters long before anyone thought to plant a vine here. The name gave the brand its world: deep blue, unhurried, entirely at home in the Atlantic.

The label was designed to be immersive rather than informative. The illustration wraps fully around the bottle with no front and no back, only a continuous underwater world you turn in your hands. The name sits large in a hand-painted brush typeface: warm, imperfect, human. The secondary information follows a loose wave along the base of the label, moving with the rhythm of the water rather than sitting on a straight baseline.

[ NAMING · LABEL DESIGN · ART DIRECTION · MOTION ]

BRAND INGREDIENTS

Typography: two voices in deliberate contrast. The wordmark is hand-painted and brushy, bringing human warmth to a brand that lives in deep blue water. The secondary type follows a wave baseline, referencing the ocean without illustrating it literally.

Illustration: the manta ray pair as a complete label world. No frame, no border. The illustration wraps the full circumference of the bottle, making the act of holding it feel like holding something alive.

Colour: deep ocean blue against clear glass, with the pale gold of the Verdelho visible through the bottle becoming part of the palette.

[ All contextual imagery and motion produced using AI generation tools, directed and curated to my brief. ]