This project aimed at refreshing a brand and returning the 'element of craft' to the design of a (relatively) small brewery. This project was a re-brand of Sharp’s Brewery submitted for the Design Bridge student competition. The reason I chose Sharp’s is because their brand and packaging do not, in my opinion, accurately reflect their brand values. Whilst they verbally speak about attention to detail, care and craft, their visuals are plain and cold, not reflective of a close-knit company. The story that I wanted to tell through the packaging was of their dedication to the process of creating the best beer.
I wanted to celebrate the many nuggets of information which help to paint a very different picture of the brand. One such detail is that they cultivate their yeast from one batch of beer to the next. Unlike most other brewers they have been using the same yeast since they first started production in 1994. This is the level of care that would be expected more from a distillery of fine whiskey.
On the front of the bottle the age of the yeast is noted for each batch of beer, and the sides of the label contain more of the brand story, talking about both the manufacturing process and the special nature of the yeast. The idea behind the packaging is to have a variety of illustrations wrapped around the bottle, each of which depicting a particular part of the production process. The copy on the left side of the label talks specifically about the production process linked to the illustration. If fully implemented there would be four illustrations which would feature on their whole range of beers.
When redesigning the logo, I decided to focus on creating a monogram that would work as an identifier for the brand with the name itself set in a serif typeface underneath. I felt that this extra visual element made the packaging more interesting as well as giving the brand more visual language to work with. The beer mats have the monogram enlarged on one side, and on the other a combination of descriptive copy about the yeast and a full bleed use of the illustrations. The illustration is spread across four beer mats, so that they match up when aligned. The beer tap badge features an identical design to the bottle packaging. There is still a space for the barman to write on the age of the yeast from each individual cask.