BRANDING
Vintage
Experience
Built on reputation and referrals,
Kaiser Design’s creative team
specializes in building a brand from
the ground up, crafting identities
that are as unique as the artisanal
beverages and specialty foods
they represent
By Lisa Gordon
Maximilian “Max“ Kaiser grew up in Ontario’s Niagara
region, fully immersed in the local winemaking
and hospitality culture. As the son of Karl Kaiser,
master winemaker and co-founder of Inniskillin Wines, his
entrepreneurial sense runs as deep as his devotion to the place
he’s always called home.
However, while his Austrian immigrant father focused
on cultivating grapes and turning them into award-winning
wines, Max was more interested in how local wineries
marketed themselves.
“I developed an affinity for the creative end of things,” he
told Poured Canada. “I started reading comic books and got
interested in marketing and packaging. I had two older sisters,
and I would look at their magazines. I just loved this one Absolut
Vodka ad; it led me in a creative direction.”
With his eye on a career in marketing and communications,
Max completed the Graphic Communications Management
program at Ryerson University in Toronto. He turned down a
job in the printing industry there and instead founded his first
design agency, Styx River Graphics, in a tiny apartment above
a restaurant in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. There, he designed
menus and other printed materials for local restaurants
and hotels.
He soon partnered with a local acquaintance who had a
plan to produce those menus. The two bought a printing press
and ran it from a garage, before an opportunity arose to buy a
print shop in nearby St. Catharines, Ont. For 15 years, Max ran
Spiral Graphics, eventually deciding to close the traditional print
Photo courtesy of Kaiser Design
WINTER 2021 § POURED CANADA § 29