September 9, 2007

valentines and geek dinners etc.

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[One of the Stormhoek designs we’re thin­king of doing for next Valentine’s Day. What do you think? Click on image to enlarge etc. Click here to see the old 2007 ver­sion on You­Tube etc etc.]
After a very hec­tic year, I am plea­sed to say things seem to be cal­ming down again [Yes, that would explain the recent rash of new car­toons. Men­tally regrou­ping etc].
Three years ago, if you said my main gig would be selling wine to Bri­tish super­mar­ket chains, I would have said you were nuts. Funny how life takes you in all sorts of won­der­fully unex­pec­ted direc­tions.
My main focus for the next few months will be on dra­wing more car­toons and orga­ni­zing more Stormhoek geek din­ners. Everything else will take a defi­nite back seat, at least on this blog. So like I said last week, if you have a UK-based geek din­ner or event plan­ned, and you think some of our wine would enhance the pro­cee­dings, please drop me an e-mail and I’ll see what I can do. Thanks Again.

"Hugh's Daily Cartoon" Newsletter. A new cartoon sent out every weekday morning to your inbox [RSS version here.]. A wee chuckle to start your day off right etc.

14 Responses to “valentines and geek dinners etc.”

  1. Tom Smith says:

    I really like the labels. But then I also like the one’s that didn’t quite make the cut which say more to me about the rea­lity of my life…
    http://www.everythingability.com/django/picasa/drawings/Crap20.jpg

  2. Leah says:

    I like this, but there were some from last year that made me weak in the knees.
    Love begets love, for one.
    But would I buy this if I saw it in Chi­cago? por supuesto.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Love it!

  4. tomdog says:

    Very good — I like that there are 2 labels there, the mes­sage and then the pro­duct label itself. Some of the humor you guys are doing reminds me of things that the Bonny Doon winery used to do about 10 years ago. If only I drank rose.

  5. Me likes … the little hearts and the sen­ti­ment expressed.

  6. john James says:

    I really like the art. ON THE BOTTLE howe­ver, I think the secon­dary lable should be much sma­ller. nice stamp loo­king thing, not quite so large.

  7. John Dodds says:

    As we dis­cus­sed face to face, my one quib­ble with last year’s great label was that due to time cons­traints I ima­gine, it loo­ked as if it had been slap­ped onto exis­ting bott­les (i.e com­plete with the other labe­lling) rather than being a spe­cial edi­tion. Given there is more lead-time this year, I won­der if you could look into incor­po­ra­ting the Stormhoek name etc into the car­toon label (not within the car­toon per se but perhaps under­neath it) so as to avoid that impression?

  8. hugh macleod says:

    Weird, John. The car­toon WAS inte­gra­ted with the label last year. So your com­ment kinda lea­ves me scratching my head.
    With this current design, believe it or not, a lot of the design func­tion depends on which paper we choose to use to print the labels on.

  9. John Dodds says:

    Seman­tics rea­ring its head here I think Hugh — what I meant was that the sil­ver Stormhoek badge was dis­tinct from (although I accept it was phy­si­cally con­nec­ted to) the car­toon and for me that was a little jarring. Having a car­toon label and a stan­dard Stormhoek labe­lling was a bit schi­zoph­re­nic for me.
    I sup­pose I’m going further than John James above in sug­ges­ting that the car­toon should be the only label and that any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Stormhoek (that might faci­li­tate later purcha­ses) would flow from something within it or perhaps just from the rear label.

  10. John Dodds says:

    That said, the one you fea­ture on this blog­post looks bet­ter than last year’s one in this respect.

  11. I think Ewan McIn­tosh might of con­tac­ted you about group of us from the Edin­burgh Cof­fee Mor­ning hol­ding one?
    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3477420821
    Jamie

  12. tina says:

    lol hahahah no!

  13. TessB says:

    Fan­tas­tic — very beau­ti­ful and lovely

  14. That design is so cute! I love it.