Twin Oaks Tavern Winery
Brand Design
As the wine industry shifts, a big question came up during my research in designing this brand identity: How do wineries get younger people to drink wine?
Traditionally, wine has been positioned as an exclusive, high-class industry where knowledge and luxury feel like the price of entry. Here in Virginia, where history runs deep, wine branding tends to lean very old-world, minimal, and honestly, a little boring (coming from my very biased Gen-Z perspective). At one point this served a valuable purpose, but my friends, times are changing.
When Michelle Spear and her daughter, Anna, took over Twin Oaks Tavern Winery in 2024, they realized they didn’t cater to the typical wine snob. They wanted to create a place where everyone could feel welcome, have fun, and explore wine without feeling like they needed to know anything first.
That became the foundation for my creative direction: something fresh, elegant, and approachable that still honors the heritage of a business founded in 1893 and the 130+ years of history it carries.
So, I got to the drawing board, literally, and started thinking about all the ways I could tell the Twin Oaks story. A mother-daughter business with deep roots, rebirthed into something new. The relationship between generations and the seed that sparks new life.
Then, through a few renditions (and parting ways with my unintentional
nut-sack logo), the simple acorn was born.
Typography can be one of the most fun, or most maddening, parts of the design process and I knew I needed to find that sweet spot between elegance and something fresh, organic, and approachable. I kept coming back to Marné as the main font with its subtle accents and unexpected details. I paired it with one of my favorite sans serifs, Degular, as the body font to bring in a little more modernity and balance.
And then I decided to really have fun with it...
I kept coming back to one idea that I felt would bring the Twin Oaks story home: notes from Mom. I envisioned little sticky notes and torn pieces of paper scattered throughout the brand, with messages like, “I hope you have a great day! Love, Mom.”
That led me to try something I had never done before. I sat down with Michelle and had her write out the alphabet, scanned her handwriting into my computer, and created my first-ever custom typeface: What The Shelly, a font completely unique to Twin Oaks, built from the handwriting of its owner. The goal was to make the brand feel less like a place you simply visit and more like a place you become a part of. A little piece of the Twin Oaks family.
The color palette came naturally from the character of Twin Oaks, with each color telling a little story of its own. The blues are pulled straight from the walls of the tavern (after all, Michelle is an interior designer), while the green represents the mountains and Appalachian Trail right in the backyard. The orange pays homage to the fox that once lived on the property, adding a little warmth to the otherwise cool-toned palette. Lastly, I added a dark and light neutral to keep things versatile throughout the branding.
Lastly came the brand elements, each one representing different characters of the Twin Oaks story while giving the brand plenty of flexibility to play with (marketing, apparel, and merchandise).
A bee, representing the hives and honey made right on the vineyard.
A book, inspired by Twin Oaks’ lively book club and seconding as the Book Club logo.
And a mountain, representing the Appalachian Trail, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Twin Oaks’ very own hiking club, also seconding as the Hike Club logo.
More than just decorative elements of the brand, these are pieces guests and wine club members can take home with them as a way to represent the winery and feel like they’re a part of that story too.
