PORTLAND — A Maine College of Art senior has designed a label that will appear on nearly 1 million bottles of beer this year, and won a $5,000 prize for her effort.

Nicole Holmes, a graphic design major from Branford, Conn., recently won a competition to create the label for D.L. Geary Brewing Co.’s Summer Ale, according to a press release last week. The design will appear on bottle labels and cartons for the ale in March.

For 15 years, Geary, one of Maine’s oldest microbreweries, has sponsored the package design contest for MECA students.

Holmes said she was inspired by an environmental course she took last semester at MECA and her love of retro designs. “With retro designs, colors always pop and the design itself is simplistic,” Holmes said.

She said she wants to use the prize money to pay off school loans and expand her library of design books and typefaces. 

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Maine College of Art senior Nicole Holmes shows off her prize-wining beer label design.


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