Over the past two weeks we’ve had a lot of meetings. Great meetings. At different places. Beer places!
We’ve now met three times with Josh Mishell about branding, and have found a potential illustrator too. With their help, we’ll be able to put our vision into something creative, artistic, pleasing to the eye, and bad-ass-awesomsaucery-ness.
Last night, we took a field trip to Argonaut Liquors. We spent an hour or so walking the beer aisle, talking about anything and everything beer and branding. We looked at the macros and talked about what they’re doing, why it works, and why it isn’t for us. We talked about every single 6-pack holder, can, bottle cap, and additional marketing materials. Most importantly, we talked about what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we wanted to do with our brand.
We came to the conclusion that we like simple, clean, yet a little bit weird. We like to stand out, quietly. We like to be loud, without yelling.
Pretty much, we want to get our personalities and the personality of our beer into a design.
I thought I’d share a few things we liked more than everything else. We’re not always very good at saying why it is we like certain elements, but we hope Josh can help us distill our thoughts into a creative brief. Here are some things we liked, and why:
Rogue
It’s simple. The brewery name is huge. The font is cool. It’s just a black background.
Boulevard Tank 7
We couldn’t quite put a finer on it, but Boulevard’s 4-pack carriers are awesome. Maybe a little too much pastel in color.
Left Hand Mixer
Most mixers are cluttered, with information about every beer inside. This is just the logo. The massive and simple logo.
Left Hand Fade To Black
Meanwhile they go with something that is pretty crazy, noisy, but at the same time they maintain simplicity. And that logo just sits there, all simple and nice looking.
Fort Collins Brewing
We really like FCB’s logo. The scratched look is very cool. The font on both the logo and the other copy is different and great looking as well.
Great Divide
As with almost every other thing about Great Divide, their branding stands out as some of the best in the industry. Simplicity, big fonts, basic colors. I’m also a really big fan of the knock-out characters they have for each product.
New Belgium
The new branding is similar, yet pretty distinct and different from the older branding. The step away from the classic and well-known blue and red is a bit of a surprise, but I do like the utter simplicity of the illustrations on the new stuff. However, that simplicity is at the cost of the story that each illustration on the older branding represents.
There’s obviously more awesome branding out there, and as we come across it, we’ll judge it as well. Next up, we need to look at tap handles and see what we like and dislike. One of my favorite of all time is Magic Hat’s wrought iron handles. Check this one out!
One thing that was really interesting, and I want to do more of, was watching people buy beer. Their choices, their thought process – at least what was visible – their reactions to three guys talking about every little aspect of every beer… It was fascinating.
What do you think of our choices? Anything you’ve seen that you think fits our likes so far?
Jeff Alworth at Beervana has done some really interesting studies on different brewery’s branding decisions. The series is called “Brand Dissection.” A favorite of mine was the Hopworks article:
http://beervana.blogspot.com/2010/02/brand-dissection-hopworks-urban-brewery.html
He’s also done it on Rogue and Ninkasi and probably a few others, they are definitely worth reading.
I think maybe what you like about Tank 7 is that it is elegant, symmetrical, and quiet and yet there is a reserved “wildness” to it, just like a good farmhouse beer. Even in it’s structure it feels organic, and maybe even rustic. At least that’s what I like about it.
Awesome! I’ll check out that series right now.
One thing that was really difficult was separating what we know about the beer, the breweries, etc., from how the branding itself looks. Some breweries have awful or very boring branding, but the beer is amazing.
Don’t know if you saw the article on the Tank 7 artwork, but it was inspired in part by Ouija boards. I did a writeup if you’re interested: http://www.pourcurator.com/2011/02/boulevard-smokestack-series-and-label.html
The thing about branding in craft beer is that the best ones maintain a look that allows for variety within, since each product needs to have its own identity.
Cool stuff, keep writing about it!
I don’t see a consistant style in this list. Some are simple, others are complicated. Some are clean, others are dirty. Some emphasize the brewer, others the flavor. The fonts are all over the place. Most have a hand-crafted feel, but the old New Belgium style looks pretty corporate to me. The only common element I see is simply good design. The parts of the design all fit together and are all balanced in a coherent whole.
The exception, I think, is Left Hand. The Fade to Black is good, but the mixer box is pretty bad. It looks like they pushed up the label to make room for the handle hole, and that makes the whole thing feel really disjointed. I’m pretty sure I’ve bought less Left Hand as a result of their design. Everything else makes me feel like a professional crafted it, and that’s what I want in beer. Left Hand makes me feel like some kid made it, not at all what I want in beer.
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This makes me all giddy inside. I love where your heads are…headed. Simple and bold go a long way in the branding world. I’d say my least favorites from yours up above are the Boulevard and FCB – likely just because there isn’t as much contrast or punch (aside from the 7 on the 4-pack).
I vote going a strong route like Left Hand. That beer’s brand has been stuck in my head since I was too young to drink and living on the other side of the country where it was rare to even see it on the shelves.
Make something that pulls us in like a black hole!
Check these, too:
http://www.thedieline.com/storage/10_31_10n02.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1288552843345
Okay – getting carried away…
great divide’s has been my favorite for a while…probably biased by the incredible beers that are behind the packaging…
the continuity of great their and packaging is pretty incredible. if you’d have taken that pic from 50 yards away, we could have told you what brewery it was from.
sure you know this already, but cultivator advertising helped develop their campaign.
http://cultivatorads.com/
Love this piece! Brewery branding is fascinating! All the best in your branding endeavors!
I have always love the branding that SKA brewing does, A little more complicated, but I believe some of the best in the industry
Ska’s stuff is awesome.
The whole brand – and all of Dorn Roberts’ art for them – is based on a comic book they created that right now exists only in the founders’ heads. Pretty cool (if extreme) conceptual work for branding purposes.
Love the website, you are living my dream. Best of luck on your way,
BB
Thanks! Is the basement brewery going to make its way to a licensed brewery?
Yo, PJ-
You should check out what Crystal Springs is doing. His labels follow the simplistic element, but there’s nothing quirky about it. Just classic. But I like them.
Those look pretty sweet! Thanks Josh
I’ve worked in the design deparment in my day job. Having a system that allows for a certain level of consistency while giving you artistic freedom is a good thing. You want all your product to look like they’re from the same family, especially when they’re on a shelf together. At the same time, you want each individual beer to stand out as well so that people can tell them apart.
I think how your packaging will look ultimately should be a result of the design and the overall system your designer comes up with. Really good graphic design just doesn’t look pretty, it is made to address specific issues and objectives. It looks like you’ve done a good job specifying what those are. It will also help your designer tremendously if you judge their final product by the issues and objectives you initially listed, as opposed to comparing what they’ve done to what might be in your head and/or the competition.
Good luck!
I’ve tended to notice the majority of professionally distributed beer will show (even if it’s in a very clean and ‘toned-down’ way) a representation of what the brewmasters were trying to convey as far as the attitude of the beer. By attitude i’m more suggesting the initial taste reaction you’ll get rather than the actual advertising campaign or logo. That’s not the case though with most original productions…i.e. their first distributed beer. Those seem to be more branded towards the brewery rather than incorporate the distinction you might except on the palate).
As far as people watching… especially in groups.. and the ultimate decision tree/discussion/decision made….For years I’ve been a part of planning, co-hosting and/or running and then analyzing various degrees of ethnographics. Collaborative group ethnography was actually my favorite + resulted in me studying a lot of crowd theory (mainly in the retail/marketing based niches)… If you remind me i’ll lend u what is considered the bible for the industry: Ethnography for marketers… it’s written in a text book style of writing however once you understand certain core theories, the advanced methodology becomes almost spellbinding. Search google and i’m sure you’ll find account planner blogs with retail examples, maybe even beer ones.. I know that coors once used the stores in-house security camera in one study like 10 years ago where each day they changed the location and or setup of the local areas best seller… i think cut down versions w/ explanations are on youtube.
For the tap handles.. the latest trend is for new breweries to try and have one that stands out to compete against the rest. How many times have u been at a bar and the person next to you when asked what they wanted just aimlessly stairs at the row of taps finally deciding on one, sometimes even just by describing the handle… magic hat #9 is my alltime fav. beer with anchor steam coming in close. I’m more of a fan of anchor steams traditional tap because it’s nice thick wood with a good sized face, logo + you can read anchor steam from across the bar… here’s who websites with HUGE lists and photos of diff brands taps:
http://www.brewerianazone.com/page2.html
http://www.beeravenue.com/beer_tap_handles.html
In college our kegorator had a modified rolls royce hood ornament as the tap…. i wish i still had that, a friend made it for us.
Lemme know if u need sources to compare prices on any equip, especially promotional equipment like taps, i’ve got a lot of friends either producing beer, distributing it, or making/providing equipment for the industry..
ohh and i almost forgot.. dude, there is a shit-ton of data on retail store behavior that you now have access to because you joined all those associations.. i forget which one but will ask my dad tomorrow + will tweet ya. One of them has a HUGE library of collected (and recent) data from all different areas of north america.
-b