Trader Vic’s Foods Label Copy
Around 1990, I wrote some romance copy for Trader Vic’s Salad Dressing labels through one of Michael Osborne Design, one of San Francisco’s premier logo and graphics companies. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
It wasn’t until last summer, while having dinner with Brian Jacobson of Focus Design in San Rafael, that we discovered we’d worked together on this project. Brian was the designer at Michael Osborne Design and I was the freelance packaging copywriter, but we one of the company’s account executives was the liaison. So we never knew about our collaboration until 2009.
In fact, Brian told me that this had been a creative test project vs. a number of other top design firms, and that his company had actually won this account through this project. The salad dressing group was the first product release of a national repositioning to compete with top-name brands on a national level. The new design featured a new word-mark and logo to communicate Trader Vic’s international heritage and commitment to quality with a natural, fresh image to the consumer.
How’s that for delayed gratification?
What goes great with chips? Beer! So for a few years, I brewed my own beer at a place in downtown San Rafael that had all the ingredients, recipes, copper kettles and bottling equipment. Naturally, my groups of beermeisters called ourselves “The Brews Brothers.” I co-created the labels with two very talented local designers, Larry Nielsen and Malcolm Rodgers.
Palladium Software in Marin County, CA, contracted with me to write copy for a few of their products. One was Nine Worlds, an astronomy software package. For the ad to promote it, “Telescope Not Required” was the headline. 
