Wine Poster

The word wine, hand-drawn at a size that runs off every edge, in deep burgundy on a cream ground. The letterforms are soft and slightly uneven, with two tones of red overlapping where the strokes cross, so the whole thing reads as poured rather than typeset. Cropping the word is the point: you recognise it before you read it. Nothing else is on the page. It is a one-joke print done with enough care that the joke holds. The cream ground is left completely bare, which is what gives the letters their weight. Nothing is explained and nothing needs to be.

Made for a kitchen, a bar corner or a dining wall, and best where it can be seen from across the room. The burgundy is deep enough to work against warm white, clay and olive walls, and it picks up wine-coloured glass and dark wood. A thin black or dark oak frame suits the weight of the letters; anything ornate fights them. Hang it alone — the cropping needs room, and a gallery wall will make it look like a fragment.