emily chappell - behind the labels

That Boutique-y Whisky Company is all about bringing great whisky to the world in a fun way, and one which is sort-of-informative (as long as you can see through the nonsense that's there just for the sake of our own silly amusement).

It all starts with the whisky. This post is not so much about that side of the process though, so take it as read that a team of very serious gents (with half moon spectacles, dashing headwear, raiment of velvet, and eyebrows on their cheeks) sample every whisky to select only the very finest spirits for independant bottling.

Once we know what we've got, we've got to devise a witty and informative label to adorn the eventual bottling. That's where Emily Chappell comes into the picture.

Emily lives in Glasgow as a freelance artist/illustrator working on posters, maps, book jackets, murals, and, of course, whisky labels; working mainly with clients to produce artwork for the food, drink and environmental sector.

Emily's style in all her works, and in particular our whisky labels, draws on observation and she is committed to documenting the small gestures in life in all her works. She aims to give her work a breath of humanity and warmth - jaunty, scratchy lines and earthy colours take over. Nothing sits up straight or has good posture in Emily's drawings...

Of the process for creating the labels, Emily says:

“I love the research part of designing the labels. Checking up on the folklore of the distillery, their old labelling and packaging, any quirky stories...

We start by the whisky team sending through their vision for the label - a story about the distillery, characters to go in the scene, that sort of thing.

I'll search for all the imagery I need. Google images first, then YouTube, then books - obviously in that order. 

For the text, I've got an old, broken-spined book on typefaces. I'll try and find something in there first to adapt and draw by hand. It's my desert island design book. 

For likenesses, it's good if I've met some of the people first, so no-one gets offended.

It's all drawn by hand, with colour added digitally. Firstly, I'll do a rough scribble in my notebook - unintelligible to anyone but me, then I draw out a pencil draft, sometimes twice to get it right.

I'm drawing at three times the scale of the printed label, so that I can get all that  'Where's Wally' style detail in there.

I use a lightbox to draw a second draft in ink. That gets sent to the whisky team to approve, then I'll work on the 'colouring-in' and piecing all the text elements together digitally.”

And there we have it - the history of Emily and an insight into her design process.