Responses by Chris Jeffreys, creative director, LOVE.
Background: We at LOVE. already had a great relationship with Scottish distillery William Grant & Sons. This time, the distillery approached us because it had built up a large stock of high-aged scotch whiskies, which it described as flavor maps of Scotland. It wanted us to look at the luxury whisky category and build a whole new brand proposition that would chart new ground, reflecting both the incredible liquid craft and the wilderness inspiration that sat behind them.
Design thinking: We had insight on a significant cultural shift in Asia and other regions, where in a post-pandemic world, people wanted to escape the city to reconnect with nature. This felt like a perfect opportunity to deliver a new-to-world whisky brand that celebrated the wilds of Scotland in a way that would aesthetically appeal to a modern, affluent consumer with a desire to get out and take an adventure.
Challenges: As designers, we all know that virtually everything has been done before. So, there were three main challenges we came up against—trying to find a clear space within the scotch whisky category for the overall concept, creating a unique bottle that told the story of the idea and finding a name that hadn’t already been taken. Once we’d found these things, we had to check that they’d resonate with the client and their key audience too. And thankfully, in this case, they did.
Favorite details: The bottle is what really sets Wildmoor apart. We wanted it to feel like it had been cut from the very landscape it sought to express. We used open-source topographical models to apply an accurate three-dimensional relief that captures all the elemental textures and forms. It’s a literal slice of the Scottish highlands.
But really, it’s less the details we’re proud of and more the bigger picture. To create a new-to-world brand for an established whisky maker like William Grant & Sons and add to its global spirits portfolio was such an incredible opportunity. Seeing such a positive response to Wildmoor from consumers and brand teams from countries and cultures so different to our own is quite amazing. We hope we can give them a taste of Scotland wherever they are.
New lessons: We’re no strangers to developing packaging design for global brands. With Wildmoor, everything was created from scratch. No matter how experienced you are, every project comes with some type of learning. Every large spirits company as their own new product development (NPD) team with their own ways of working. It requires significant collaboration between agency, NPD and marketing teams to get to the right solution. The design went through a lot of tweaks, but we’re really pleased that the final product is faithful to our initial concept.
Visual influences: Within scotch whisky packaging, you will find category codes that have been in place for decades, things that signal that it’s scotch and a premium product. Gold foils. Bold, masculine colors. “Heather and weather” photography. Tall bottle shapes. For Wildmoor, we wanted to break some of these codes and bring something different.
We saw that there wasn’t a scotch behaving like their cooler cousins in the Japanese whisky sector, which have their own way of doing things. They often capture a pureness and connection to nature—which was our intention for Wildmoor. So, we borrowed some codes from them to create something that appealed to both sides of the world. For our comms and spatial designs, we were looking to brands from outside the category that do nature and luxury well, like Moncler and Canada Goose. In doing this, we hope that people who connect with those kinds of brands will find appeal in Wildmoor.
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