MESSAGE ON A BOTTLE: COLOURS AND SHAPES IN WINE LABELS Message on a Bottle: Colours and Shapes in Wine Labels

Wine consumers rely mainly on the label to infer the quality of a bottle. But there is little empirical research on how colours can be interacted with shapes in the design of wine labels. This study draws from an experiment using data from Spain and shows that there are strong preferences for selected colour-shape combinations in label design. Surprisingly, colour alone does not elicit as strong preferences as certain shapes do, at least when they are assessed irrespectively of the shapes featured in the label. Other combinations, on the other hand, are very resilient, especially those that contain colour hues, such as brown, yellow, black and green, in labels with salient rectangular and hexagonal patterns. ¨It is probably the expressive qualities (primarily of colour but also of shape) that spontaneously affect the passively receiving mind, whereas the tectonic structure of pattern (characteristic of shape, but found also in color) engages the actively organizing mind.¨ Rudolf Arnheim in Art and Visual Perception, a psychology of the creative eye. Consumers are well known to rely on the imagery, layout and colour used in labels to infe