Some of you might be wondering what kind of project could possibly take a human being 42 hours during one weekend (not including the other several hours we worked on it before this weekend) to make. Well, I ask myself that very same question.
Our final project was to make a design pieces for a brewery: business identity (4), magazine ad, bar glasses, beer labels, 6-pack, and three “extras.”
I worked on this project with Ben Marshall & Shane Milner. And, although they said that I was the queen bee and that they were merely drones, I thought we worked well together despite our different tastes.
Concept: Based on research about the history of beer, specifically mead, Shane found out that honey had been used in the past during the fermentation process (instead of yeast?) to create beer. Honey, depending on which flowers are pollinated can sometimes be toxic. We used this idea of toxic honey and the history of making honey-brews to to create a brewing company that specializes in honey beers, called “Brew Hive.”
Here is the final result (set up for critique):
The two brews we made were called the “Bumbler” and the “Belladonna.” The Bumbler plays off the idea of bumble bee and bumbling after you become intoxicated. The idea was that the beer bumbled into a honeycomb and became intoxicated by the honey made from the headbane flowers. The Belladonna, another flower used to make toxic honey features a beautiful lady enticing you to drink. Shane did the illustrations, I did the typography, Ben did the framework.
We decided to only do packaging for the Bumbler, and the Belladonna was just there to explain our concept further. The packaging features further information about the specific brew, and the bottom has more information about the concept and history of our company.
Ben did designed the template, I placed the graphics and did the side content, Shane did the content on the bottom of the box.
Our business identity has to do with bee communication. The letterhead features a stylized version of the waggle dance, which is how bees tell each other where flowers are in relation to the sun. Here, the center point is our logo, or the “hive” and the waggle dance leads the view to the flowers, on the edge of the design. The business card repeats this idea with the “bee” going from the flower to the information about the person. Our envelope has a re-worked hexagonal pattern on the inside to represent the hive, which the two communication pieces come from.
The type on our logo and the design on the letterhead are hand drawn (by myself), the border was created by Ben.
Our extras: dartboard, beer snacks, and coasters
Our extras had to do with community (drinking with others) as well as our previous concept. The dartboard is a promotional piece that could be given to bars or our customers. It’s a game that can be played with multiple people and we also liked the idea of the dart being bee-like since it had a stinger.
Our food packaging is marketed as an “antidote” to the the hangover our beer might cause. It’s banana chips because the potassium and magnesium in bananas are supposed to “cure” a hangover and cashews because they’re delicious :). We saw this as being a series that can be marketed independently from the beer if necessary. It’s packaged in a slightly larger quantity for sharing.
Our coasters come in a set with pieces the lock together to form a complete image, but are visually appealing on their own. Again, to tie in the idea of drinking with friends.
Ben designed the food packaging, dartboard and darts. Shane did the coasters.
Finally, our magazine ad was a call to action. Drink our beer. It worked off our research that honey beers are supposed to cause a pretty bad hangover—but don’t worry, you can eat our snacks to get better!
I did the ad…not the best, I know. It was one of the last things we worked on.
BREW HIVE!