Top Source Sauvignon Blanc — Wine Label Design for a Columbia Valley White Wine
After creating the logo and label designs for Top Source Walla Walla Valley Syrah and Columbia Valley Red Wine, I was asked to extend the range with a new Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc.
The task was to design a white wine label that clearly belonged to the same Top Source family, while giving this bottle a lighter, brighter personality of its own. The existing labels had already established the visual language: a compact black Top Source header, hand-drawn lettering, generous white space and small illustrative marks used with restraint. The Sauvignon Blanc needed to continue that logic without simply changing the name and calling it a day.
I developed a label centered on the flowing Columbia lettering already associated with the red wine, but shifted the mood through color and imagery. A hand-painted yellow sun rises behind the lettering, giving the composition a warmer, more luminous quality suited to the Sauvignon Blanc. The blue accent remains, linking the bottle back to the earlier Columbia Valley Red Wine, while the brighter yellow brings a fresh note of its own.
The intention was not to decorate the label with generic sunshine, but to give the bottle a clear emotional register: crisp, open, optimistic, and just a little more extroverted than its red counterpart. Wine labels are small things, but they do have moods. This one was allowed to arrive in a good one.
Extending an existing wine label system
This project was less about inventing a completely new identity than about expanding an established one with care. The Sauvignon Blanc label needed to feel immediately connected to the other Top Source wines while remaining clearly legible as a distinct new bottle in the range.
The design therefore preserves the essential Top Source architecture:
- the black brand panel at the top of the label;
- the expressive hand-drawn treatment of the wine name;
- the clean, uncluttered white label field;
- a small number of color and illustration elements used with purpose rather than decoration.
Within that structure, the painted sun becomes the label’s defining addition. It adds warmth, brightness and an unmistakably white-wine lift without breaking continuity with the existing Top Source red wine designs.
A brighter companion to the Top Source red wines
The earlier Top Source labels relied on drawn lettering and restrained graphic accents to give the wines a distinct, authored presence. The Sauvignon Blanc continues that approach, but moves it toward something more radiant. The hand-painted sun creates a small burst of energy behind the name, while the rest of the label remains disciplined and open.
That balance mattered. A white wine label can easily become relentlessly fresh, endlessly zesty, and oddly exhausted by its own enthusiasm. This design aims for something more composed: bright without being noisy, cheerful without becoming flippant, and fully part of the same family as the Top Source Syrah and Columbia Valley Red Wine.
Project scope
- Wine label design for Top Source Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc
- Extension of an existing Top Source label system
- Custom lettering integration and compositional refinement
- Hand-painted sun motif developed for the white wine variant
- Packaging artwork prepared for print production
Project credits
- Client: Top Source
- Wine: Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc
- Region: Washington State, USA
- Creative direction and wine label design: Ian David Marsden
Related Top Source wine label design
This Sauvignon Blanc label extends the visual direction first developed for the Top Source Walla Walla Valley Syrah and Columbia Valley Red Wine labels. More broadly, I create packaging design, illustrated wine labels and brand visuals for producers looking for a more distinctive visual language.
Custom wine label and packaging design
I design wine labels, packaging artwork and illustrated brand systems for producers in the United States, France and internationally. Some commissions begin with a completely new visual identity; others involve extending an existing range without diluting what made it work in the first place.
