About

For over twenty years Owen Design has specialized in the highest quality branding and package design for the wine and spirits industries. Other projects of interest may also be considered.

Owen Design is me, Bill Owen. There are no junior designers or account executives. There are no fancy offices or lavish expense accounts. I work from my quiet home in Portland, Oregon. I meet my clients at their vineyard or distillery, or a favorite restaurant, or on the phone.

I work one-to-one with my clients every step of the way sharing my knowledge and expertise to create meaningful, honest design that is superior to the outdated agency model.

CAPABILITIES

Logo Design, Packaging Design, Marketing and Point of Sale Collateral, Website Design Consultation

TRUTH BEAUTY DESIGN

TRUTH

Everything I design begins with the truth. I start each project with detailed interviews. I listen. I ask difficult questions. I listen some more. I want to know more than the what and how of a client’s product. To create an authentic brand I need to know why my clients choose to make what they make.

BEAUTY

I invest hours on research; learning, understanding, and finding the beauty in my client’s truth. I collect and combine the verbal and visual elements that tell their story. I simplify, balance and distill until a succinct, cohesive and beautiful message emerges.

DESIGN

Even the most brilliant concept will fail if it can’t be printed. My many years in the printing industry offer me rare insight into the strengths and limitations of label printing and how design can take advantage of both.

A BRIEF HISTORY

I started my career working as an art director at advertising agencies up and down the west coast. It was fast and fleeting and sometimes fun. I gravitated to the branding side and spent most of my time designing logos for large and small companies. I met a lot of amazing people including my wife, Angela.

With sixty hour work weeks burnout eventually set in for both of us. We left advertising and joined the Peace Corps. For two years we lived in a small town in northern Romania. My job was to promote tourism in the surrounding villages of Maramures. It was idyllic.

When we returned to the United States we moved back to my home town of Portland, Oregon. I decided to spend some time focusing on personal art projects. To make ends meet I took a job in pre-press with a small printer that specialized in printing wine labels. Working daily preparing labels to print I learned what the presses could do first hand.

One day the printing press owner asked me if I could design a wine label. I said yes and started designing logos and wine labels for some of our clients. More and more design work came in and I rediscovered my passion for design.

A few years later, during a press check, I sat in the conference room with the press owner on one side and a winery client on the other. After a few rounds of adjustments the label printing was close but not quite right. I suggested another press adjustment. The owner, my boss, glared at me, but consented. Afterward I got an ear full and realized I couldn’t work for both the wineries and the printers. Owen Design was born.