Holistic brand strategy and design for niche Australian start up. Looking sideways to inject fun and character into a very niche product, perhaps perceived as mainly utilitarian.
CLIENT: Craft Beer Glasses
INDUSTRY: Beer / Glassware
AGENCY: Freelance
ROLE: Creative Director & Design Lead
OVERVIEW
The brand name is Craft Beer Glasses, the product is Craft Beer Glasses, and the website is craftbeerglasses.com.au - Simple. Craft beer glasses had noticed a partial gap in a niche market and needed a complete creative solution that made a very simple (and potentially fairly uncompelling) offering stand out from the crowd.
Brief in Brief
WANT: Standard ecommerce website design with complete branding and marketing collateral, including brand and marketing strategy.
BRAND VISUALS: Something to elevate the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin business that speaks to the target audience and stands out from the crowd.
AUDIENCE NOTES: Craft beer enthusiasts and their families (particularly the gift buying market).
Challenges
ADDING CHARACTER: With such a literal brand name and straight forward business model, the initial challenge was how to inject character and a sense of playfulness into the brand that would appeal to the target demographic.
AD CREATIVE: As a start up requiring a full branding and creative solution (in addition to the website), there were obvious constraints when it came to product and product marketing creative, so we had to devise an efficient approach that still fitted with the quality ethos of the brand.
AD CREATIVE: As a start up requiring a full branding and creative solution (in addition to the website), there were obvious constraints when it came to product and product marketing creative, so we had to devise an efficient approach that still fitted with the quality ethos of the brand.
SOLUTION
SYMBOL: With the scope to "have fun" with the brand, we played with the word "glasses" (glassware or spectacles?) with a simple symbol that could be a pair of spectacles, or could be two beer glasses viewed from the top down. This became the "face" motif.
FLUID VISUAL IDENTITY: As a fast growing start up, it was important not to be too rigid or prescriptive with the brand, so a fluid visual identity was developed. Rather than a traditional visual identity that requires strict application of a rigid logo, fonts and colours, a fluid visual identity is a visual DNA, made from a wealth of components that represent the brand. The components include a core set of permanent iconography and elements, alongside a potentially unlimited set of additional components that fit into the art & design based brand aesthetic (see brand book).
PERSONAS: Part of the product strategy was gift boxes with different types of glasses for different types of beer. With the brand strategy we created a visual element to this which used the "glasses" logo to create personas that represented each gift set catered to a different type of beer drinker (see animations images below).
PRODUCT / AD CREATIVE: With resource constraints, we were able to get creative with the product creative and the creation of the animated gifs of the beer glasses filling up, putting the product front a centre and properly celebrating the aesthetic. In this way, engaging, eye catching product and ad creative was created within the realms of a arena of a product photo shoot (see animations below).
