Jolie-Laide changes its label art every single year.

Jolie-Laide is a lesson in the label as a gallery wall. Founded in 2010 by Scott Schultz (now with his wife Jenny Schultz) in Sonoma County, California, it is an independent, minimal-intervention producer working uncommon grapes like Trousseau Gris and Gamay. Its name, jolie-laide, is French for “pretty-ugly” — unconventionally, strikingly beautiful.

Its brand identity is rotating and artist-forward — the label art changes every vintage, each year featuring a different artist and a different style, so the bottle behaves like a gallery wall that resets. Across the years the art has spanned line sketches, antique photographs, abstract paintings (some vintages went entirely wordless on the front) and, in 2024, a collaboration with Oakland’s Creative Growth Art Center. The constant is restrained type that defers to the image.

(Honest notes: there’s no fixed “antique-engraving” house style — that was one early phase; the identity is that the art changes every year. It’s a husband-and-wife operation (not a one-man, 500-case label). And there’s no official brand hex, so the tones here are an unofficial interpretation.)

Jolie-Laide lives in a gallery-mauve palette. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Jolie-Laide’s identity is curatorial, refined and neutral — an ink, a gallery mauve, a gold, a grey, and a bone. The palette leans on a muted mauve with a gold — the register of a gallery wall that lets rotating artwork lead. It signals art, restraint and curation rather than a fixed house look. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is a neutral, curatorial palette lets the art lead. Jolie-Laide’s world is a bottle that changes its art each year. For designers, it is a reminder that a muted mauve with a gold reads as refined and gallery-like — right for a rotating-artist label. The takeaways: keep the frame neutral; let the image change; and treat any single hex as unofficial — using ink for small text so the palette stays curatorial.

The register is a gallery serif — refined and deferential.

Jolie-Laide’s identity carries a refined, curatorial, deferential spirit — art that changes and type that steps back. A gallery serif captures the mood: it is elegant and quiet, the register of type that lets the image lead. Set in a gallery-mauve palette, the gallery serif feels refined and deferential — exactly the personality Jolie-Laide carries. It is understated rather than assertive, mirroring a label that defers to its artwork. (Jolie-Laide’s real labels and commissioned artworks are works we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not ours to use.) Because the labels are not ours to use, the honest description is “a gallery serif spirit,” shown here in a stand-in. The type behaves like the brand: refined, curatorial and deferential.

Jolie-Laide stands for a label that resets every vintage.

Jolie-Laide is a lesson in making rotation the identity. A curatorial palette, deferential type and a new artist every vintage make change itself the whole brand — refined, artist-forward, ever-new. The rotation is the differentiator. The differentiator is a rotating-artist, gallery, ever-changing identity.

For designers and brand-builders, Jolie-Laide offers a clear takeaway: change can be the constant. The lessons: make the concept the brand (a new artist each year); keep the frame neutral so the art leads; and commission real artists (from abstract painters to the Creative Growth studio). It is also a reminder to stay accurate: there’s no fixed engraving style, it’s a husband-and-wife operation, and the palette here is an unofficial interpretation. Jolie-Laide made rotation the brand — proof that change can be the difference.

Keep Jolie-Laide’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.