Package Design Meets New Tech Students!

The Project

As a Design Teacher I've never done package design, but have always wanted to do a project with my Graphic Design students based on the concept. One of my advanced students had just finished his internship at a package design firm, Gatto Rivera and I was super intrigued about the process they use for designing, primarily, wine labels.  Tim and Raquel Gatto, along with Antonio Rivera, agreed to meet with me to teach me what they did in a step-by-step overview.  The meeting was intended for me to get some coaching and some information to take back to the students. When all was said and done, Tim, Raquel and Antonio agreed to go one step beyond and mentor the students through the process over a period of two months, meeting with the students every two to three weeks.

---

Ideation: The Step That Needs More Time Than We Think

We began with ideation. The students were tasked with creating 15-20 very rough sketches to explore as many ideas as possible. Each team was given a creative brief of a "client" based on real clients but with their names and some details changed. Students were asked to design everything from a Brazilian wine maker in love with 80's punk to a generations old family winery based in the Sierra foothills. The briefs added a sense of realism and fun to the project, as the problems students were asked to solve were complex and challenging, just like in real life!

After studying the briefs and doing further research online, students were then asked to communicate the problems they were trying to solve in each brief and then present the thumbnail sketches as possible solutions to those specific client problems. They then pitched their ideas to the Creative Directors at Gatto Rivera and got valuable feedback from them on how to further their ideas. 

Visual Cohesion Demands Team Communication

Then it was time for implementation and further iteration, along with more feedback sessions from each other and from the Creative Directors. Here, we concentrated on making sure that the groups has some sort of visual cohesion between bottles, whether it be a shared brand mark, font or color palette. 

Bottles Make the Design Real

Once the labels were complete, they were sent off to the "printers" at Gatto Rivera, who very kindly managed to get bottles donated, filled them with colored, salted water, corked and then labels cut and applied.  How amazing it was to see student work on the actual bottles!  While we waited for the bottles to be made, we met with Stephanie Wolden from Wine Glass Marketing to learn how to take professional bottle and beauty shots. She was generous enough to donate the lights, camera and other equipment to ensure that we succeeded in photographing our bottles. Thank you, Stephanie!

Industry Experts Attend our Wine Release Party

We celebrated the finished product with a wine release party, just like industry does, but with grape juice instead of wine.  Tim, Raquel and Anthony invited all of their contacts to come and give feedback and celebrate with the students.  We had over 20 people from industry show up including the superintendent of Napa County, folks from Bay Grape, Fedrigoni, Jackson Family Wines, Offset, Solano Community College Digital Media Dept., Napa Valley Vintners, and Amorim Cork America.  Having industry people interview the students about their process really upped the game and let them know that we take their work seriously.  Adults said they were impressed with the student's speaking skills.  One adult was surprised that the class was made up of mostly 10th grade students and is now seriously considering New Tech High School for their now 1st grader! We'll be waiting for you.

As we bring the project to a close, the last and final steps include photographing the bottles and putting the pictures on their portfolios for future use. We are making full use of our large format printer to print both the backgrounds and the textures for the table. It's incredible what you can create with the right lighting, the right textures and a smart phone with portrait mode. 

We're Back with full PBL projects! Wahoo!

For me, this project was a long-awaited return to PBL as I know it can be.  We were able to involve community adults again in the classroom in a way that brings home the important lessons that PBL imparts, collaboration, speaking skills, writing skills and project management skills, all while holding the highest of standards for craftsmanship and precision in Digital Design. It's nice to know that PBL still really does work. It certainly has been sorely missed by me and by my students these last couple of years.  But we are BACK and better than ever.  It only took the entire school year to get here, but I am so relieved, and proud of my students for their excellent work!

Mentors Make a Project Come Alive

I've now done several projects with industry mentors that stay with the project from beginning to end, usually over several months, and I can not recommend it enough. Here are some of the most compelling the reasons to have a long-term mentor in the classroom:
​

1. Mentors help set reasonable benchmarks that correlate directly to industry 
2. Mentors naturally set authentic expectations for what skills are needed for the project
3. Students immediately feel that the bar is set higher
4. Students are more open to hearing feedback and information from someone doing the job in real life vs. the teacher
5. Mentors help the teacher to understand the creative process used in industry
6. Teachers introduce mentors to students who may make great future interns or employees.
7. Companies gets to see what we are doing within the classroom and usually offer more help once they see what it's all about
8. Students are motivated by real-world scenarios and meaningful work
9. Learning is just more fun when we all do it together!

I think the part about high school students being ready for meaningful work is the MOST important item on the list.  Many of the behavioral issues we normally see in class disappear when we do a project like this. Students rise to the challenge, simply because it's an interesting challenge and the stakes are higher.  

It's is our imperative, as educators and community members to find ways for students of all ages to do more meaningful work.  I once had a student say, "I don't do the work for the grade, I do the work because the community is counting on me."  That's powerful stuff and this project delivered that impact.  It's so good to be back! A big thank you to Gatto Rivera and all the industry folks who contributed to this project. 

If you'd like to see other impactful projects we've done in the past, check out our Lighted Art project, our Global Create-a-thon project and our museum exhibit project.  Cheers!   
Mrs. Gottfried