In our group we initially discussed what we wanted our 'autumn brew' flavour to be, what to call it and the colour scheme of the bottle/label. We decided to avoid any obvious autumn flavours such as pumpkin, and Emma suggested blood orange as a kind of Halloween inspired flavour. From our research into BrewDog and their flavours we noticed a few citrus-y beers in their selection, so also thought that blood orange would fit into their range quite well! Emma also came up with the name 'Elm Street' a nod to the blood-thirsty 'Nightmare on Elm Street' horror movie and another link to the autumnal, Halloween theme we were going for as well as the 'blood' orange flavour. Again, looking at Brewdog's obscure beer names such as Dead Pony Club, 5am Saint and Elvis Juice, we thought 'Elm Street' was just as ambiguous.
Esther came up with the idea of doing some large wooden letterpress, as this kind of typography reflects the handcrafted nature of BrewDog as well as the punk inspired graphics. We also decided on bright pink and orange as colour themes, and that we wanted to create two different label designs- one standard label and one special edition halloween version. We also thought that the bright pink would be a change from typical autumn colours. We then split off into separate groups, Esther and Sophie to work on letterpress (so we could allow enough time for the prints to dry and be scanned in to edit) and me and Emma to work on editing the logo (we wanted to change the dog into a Halloween themed dog) and getting together colour/texture swatches to go onto the design board.
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| The Halloween 'Devil Dog' Logo |
I started by using free textures online and altering the colours on Photoshop. I also took the brewdog logo and edited it to look like a little devil dog. I also set up an a3 page on photoshop to put all our work on, and originally I laid the colour tiles out in equal squares. Emma suggested to have them different sizes and overlapping them to make it look more dynamic. When Sophie and Esther came round to look at what we had been doing Sophie then suggested cutting the colour tiles into leaf shapes and have them cascading down the side of the page, which would emphasis the autumn theme of the drink whilst also being visually appealing. When outside, me and Emma picked up some fallen leaves to scan in and change the colour to also add to the design board, also adding the kind of photo-collage look that is often seen in 'punk' imagery (think Sex Pistols 'God Save the Queen'). After speaking to George we also decided to make our sheet A2 in size, allowing more space to work with.
After lunch we each had a role, Emma was creating the standard bottle label (in pink), Sophie was creating the halloween edition label (in orange), Esther was gathering more research on the company (as so far we had only key words on the design board which highlighted the main aspects of the company) and I was in charge of putting the whole design board together and laying it out, although it was definitely decided by the group as a whole how the design board would look.We photographed the letterpress print in the end as it was still tacky, and Sophie sent it to our Facebook message group so we each had a copy to use. Sophie and Emma used the type for their labels, and I changed the colour and uses parts of the lettering amongst the leaves and also enlarged and faded the letterpress type to become a background design.
I emailed the font I had downloaded, a faded type that was similar to the Brewdog logo itself, to Emma and Sophie to use on their labels, as well as the new 'devil dog' logo. I also edited the bottle graphic used on the brew dog website by removing the existing label, so that Sophie and Emma could fit their logo onto the bottle. This created a cohesive look that was in keeping with the brand, and also gave the labels some context instead of just being flat rectangle images.
Esther gave me more information about the company which I typed up and arranged on the page, and Sophie and Emma sent me their bottles with the label designs. Emma's was really tiny in size and blurred slightly when made bigger to go onto the design board, which may have been my fault as the bottle template I sent over was quite small. As we were running out of time, we decided to screenshot the image off Emma's laptop then email to me to use, which actually worked! For future work though I will make sure to double check sizes and DPI. Once everyone had completed tasks we sat around the screen and looked at the design board together, making sure we were all happy. After changing the positioning of some of the text, and adding more text to fill out the space we decided that we were happy to print. Esther and Sophie delivered a USB to George who was very patiently waiting by the big printer in the IT Suite.
Seeing the design board printed out large I was pleasantly surprised, I did have a quick scan of the image on photoshop at 100% to check for any blurry images but I wasn't very thorough, and I expected some of the bright pinks to appear dull. However, everything looked crisp and the colours looked fine, some of the pinks kept their brightness.
As a whole we were really happy with how our design board looked, as well as the information on there. The letter press looked amazing, and really added something special to our work. I think as a team we work well together, we all know our strengths and we also know when to compromise and how to manage our time. Overall I think we were really successful, if I could change anything I would add some more label designs possibly, as well as different designs for bottle caps etc. as that is what one other group did and it looked really good. We could have also explored some more design ideas, as other groups had researched autumnal holidays and Scottish themes that I think worked really well and were interesting.
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