Skip to content
  • Approach
  • Work
  • About
  • Giving
  • News & Views
  • Careers
  • Contact
Menu
  • Approach
  • Work
  • About
  • Giving
  • News & Views
  • Careers
  • Contact

A full-bodied brand refresh for wine aficionados

Brand Activation • Brand Identity • Brand Strategy • Digital Design
Brief

Since we began working with the Institute of Masters of Wine in 2015, we’ve been tasked with strengthening the brand across a diverse range of platforms.

First, the core brand: wine has its own complex and well-established visual language, implicitly understood by experts in the field. We needed to become fluent in that language to help the Institute develop an impressive and authoritative brand identity as a high-end educational organisation.

The brand identity had to be flexible enough to make an impact across three key areas: the Master of Wine Symposium, held in a different international city every four years; the company’s prospectus; and its detailed student guides.

Solution

We had to tread a fine line with the Institute of Masters of Wine, showcasing the brand consistently across all touch-points as a prestige education provider — but without alienating prospective students and supporters by appearing too elite.

We adopted the organisation’s existing visual identity, but transformed the brand delivery: we developed a new tone of voice, updated image-use guidelines and messaging, and created a raft of internal and external comms.

The Master of Wine Symposium is a huge job: each symposium requires its own identity, inspired by the global wine region in which it’s held. We work with the Institute to create the whole branding experience: everything from t-shirts, flyers and banners to visitor guides and interior displays.

Finally, the IMW’s website design: our primary role was to make it more accessible, capturing the Understood and Loved aspects of our Connect in Full methodology. 

The site was too complicated, and too packed with information to have a real impact. We streamlined the build and content, improving the user experience and highlighting the things that really mattered to prospective students and wine aficionados. It’s now a warm, welcoming and informative site that’s easy to find and navigate.

The auctions supports the Masters of Wine Endowment Fund which enables the IMW to extend its range of activities in the global wine world.

Over four days, delegates of Living Wine 2018, our ninth international symposium held in Logrono, Spain, heard from wine industry experts and innovators in their field.

“

From brainstorming ideas, their approach to finding solutions, and ultimately creating beautiful content, working with Straight Forward is an absolute joy. The fantastic team have transformed the IMW’s brand delivery over the last few years, the most recent being a new website. We trust them completely with our brand and consider them part of the IMW family.
Institute of Masters of Wine - Head of marketing, Communications and Membership
More work:
Straight Forward Skittles packaging

Branding the rainbow: a creative collaboration

Reaching mothers all over India through visual design

LATEST NEWS & VIEWS:

Rise from the ashes: how 2023 can be a year of renewal

Why the cost-of-living crisis means brands should be more grandma

Straight Forward Design - Icon
Contact

+44 (0)20 7580 2875
[email protected]

Straight Forward Design
112 – 114 Great Portland Street
London W1W 6PH

Instagram Linkedin Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Quick Links

Approach
Work
About
Giving
Contact
News & Views
Poster Series
We ♥ Fitzrovia

Shop

Inconvenience of Human Movement
Basket
Checkout

Important

Data Use Policy
Website Use Policy

STRAIGHT FORWARD DESIGN LIMITED • Copyright 2023 • All Rights Reserved