Branding the Evolution of beer
It was a brief to go ape over. The combination of two of our favourite things – branding and beer – and a client keen to consider and explore noisy, fun and quirky creative routes.
We were briefed to come up with a brand identity, including names and labels for eight brand new craft beers.
The theme all started with an ape. A starting point born to reflect the brand’s origins and the location of its brewery in Shrewsbury – the birth place of Charles Darwin, the ‘father of evolution.’ From there, animals remained a big theme across the range but expanded to include space, the ocean, robots and cats in Hawaiian shirts (obviously).
There is of course a link between robots and cats in Hawaiian shirts and beer – all the illustrations reflect the beers’ unusual names which we had the pleasure of brainstorming… Welcome to the bar: Kiss the Future, Update Your Smile, Resistance Is Futile, Love Cats Lager, Descent of Man, Good Vibes, The Robots are Coming and Repeat Until Dead.
In addition, the creative applied to each had to be able to work across keg badges, beer mat runners, business cards, t-shirts and a web holding page. All executed so successfully, we’ve since been asked to work on another three beer identities.
Neil Harrison, senior creative, says: “It was great fun to work on the cutting edge of the craft beer industry. But there’s always a challenge. Ours was to turnaround the identity and eight badge designs in record time for an upcoming launch event. It was a challenge we didn’t back down from and now there’s an award-winning beer in the collection!”
Resistance is Futile won gold for Best in Category (pale ale) at the Dublin Craft Beer & Cider Cup 2019, while Love Cats Lager, Good Vibes and Kiss the Future were awarded Bronze.
