Five hot sauce bottles with drawn faces standing at rest on a low stage in a dark blue club at night, a spotlight pooled on the brick wall behind them, their shadows thrown up the wall: smug, twitchy, sweaty, crying, and the fifth torn in three, laughing

For hot sauce makers.

Your sauce, tasted before it’s opened.

Straight Face, a sauce brand I made to show you, nobody’s client.

One hot sauce bottle big under its own spotlight, Smoked Habanero, held on its heat: eyes wide, brows climbing, a gritted grin, sweat flying; beside it the five small on the lit stage, MILD under the first and HOT under the fifth, the third ringed

One up close.

Its taste first. Then its heat.

You taste it on the label before you read a word. Then its place on the row tells you how hot it is.

A dark night, a pepper plant printed pale grey in light hanging from its top

One red hot sauce bottle at its own size in the dark, its clear label printed in black: a thin ring with a narrow slit that the red sauce behind it turns into an eye, GLOWER, EXTRA HOT SAUCE and 7 POT PRIMO under it; round its cap and its neck hangs its own pepper plant, printed pale grey in light, veined leaves, wrinkled pods with curled tails and a few small flowers

And another, nothing alike.

The hotter, the narrower.

Red 7 Pot Primo, picked ripe and bottled fresh: citrus and flowers first, then the heat. One clear label printed in black, and the sauce behind it becomes an eye.

Glower, a sauce brand I made to show you, nobody’s client.

Where sauce is bought.

Tasted where you can’t pour.

A hot sauce shop a minute before it opens: cream tiles and pale oak shelves packed floor to ceiling with bottles of many makers under glowing glass globes; five cartoon bottles with faces at eye level, a red bottle alone up top by a gold rosette; at the counter tasting cups under a TASTE card, a blue box of three of the face bottles, and a phone on a stand showing the red bottle.

A spoon sells sauce, and it reaches one counter. On a wall of a hundred, in a box someone gives, a thumb wide on a phone, the label pours instead.

Straight Face and Glower, both mine; every other bottle on this wall made up, nobody’s.

How I made it.

One sauce, from the words for its taste to the file its printer runs.

A layout pad: Smoke, then a slow burn. written across its head in my own hand; under it twenty tries at the sauce’s face in its own brush, the fourteenth ringed in red pencil; under them the five bottles, the third boxed: Third of five.

What I did.I wrote down how it tastes before drawing a line, then drew its face twenty ways against those words. The one on the bottle still says it best.

What you get.The same hunt, run on your own words: a face, a mark or a hand-drawn name, whatever your sauce asks for. Never my style.

The label as my printer proofs it: printed on white gloss film, cut on its round corners, lying on its glassine liner with the printer’s marks round it -- the front with the sauce’s face, its back with the Nutrition Facts, the ingredients and a barcode that scans

The bottle it goes on, standing on the paper

The label’s back on the proof, close: the Nutrition Facts, the ingredients, the allergens and the maker’s line

What I did.I laid the label flat on its printer’s own file and drew the back as carefully as the front: what’s in it, the small print, even the barcode, which still scans.

What you get.A file your printer opens and runs as it is, the legal lines already in it, in your brand’s own hand.

A new sauce brand, from nothing.
Or the one you already sell.

1First I read your sauce: your bottle, your shelf, what your buyers say, and your own words for its taste.
2Every label in your range, print-ready on your printer’s own file.
3Your taste, felt before a word — smoky, bright, sweet, sharp, whatever yours is — then your heat, told your own way.
4Mark, type, colour, motion: one system, from the bottle out. Your range reads as one family on the wall, and each next sauce joins it with its own taste.
5Your motion as files you own, moving and still, for your shop, your feed, wherever your sauce is seen.
6All of it yours, with the few rules that keep it whole.

How it works

No price list. Every brand gets its own offer, with its exact price, before you pay anything.

Say yes, and you pay half. You see it once, finished, on the date in your offer. The other half only when you love it. I don’t stop until you do, and if I can’t get you there, every cent goes back.

Questions

I already sell my sauce. Do I have to change my label?: Only if it needs it, and never the part your buyers know you by. Your offer says exactly what changes before you pay anything. The bottles you’ve printed sell through; the new label waits for your next run.
Do I keep my name?: Yes, and it changes only if you ask. If you want a new one, I search it on the trademark registers where you sell before your offer, and your offer says what I found. The last word on a new name is a lawyer’s.
I sell six sauces. Can I start with one?: Yes. Your offer has both: one label to start, and your whole range — your brand with its first sauce, then each next sauce at one price. You choose what comes first.
Is printing included? What else will I pay?: Printing stays with your label printer, and your gift box with its maker, at their price. Before I draw anything, I ask your printer what their press can do on your bottle, and they check every file before you see it. If your label changes, they may charge once to set it up; they’ll tell you what. From me, the price in your offer is all you pay.
Will it be ready before my season?: About four weeks from the day I have your printer’s file, for your brand with its first sauce, and about a week more for each next one, all shown to you at once. The exact date is in your offer, before your season and your next label run. If that’s too close, your offer says so and you choose; I never rush it. Your part: a few facts about your bottle and your labels, a yes, and that file.
Do I still have a say in my own brand?: Yes, before anything is made. Your offer says what I’ll build, the story, and where it will live. Nothing starts until you say yes. I never ask you to explain your brand.

Send me your sauce.

If I love it, within a week you’ll see what I’d make of it, with your offer. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

Show me Hire

I build one brand at a time. Next opening: December.