When the retailer and distributer of fine wines and spirits was being set up back in 2000, the identity brief was simple: a sophisticated and high-end brand, free of gimmicks and overused references, and, well, French-speaking. This personality was originally met through the design of a straightforward typographic mark, a bottle-green color, and a French name and descriptor. The scheme did the job. But shortly before the first set of applications were to be sent to print, the designers felt that something was missing. Is that all there is? A last minute intervention on the logotype – mapping it on the curve of an invisible bottle – took the identity somewhere else: unique without being gimmicky, “facing you” without being “in your face”. Moreover, it put the bottle at the forefront through a subtle reference, enriching the identity scheme and retaining the understated elegance that had been intended from the get-go. 
In 2007, the design store Over the Counter started sharing the premises, reconfiguring the retail space and generating some interesting opportunities for co-communication.