Last week we launched our new series Design For by talking with three designers about the particular challenges of designing for a beer can: Jose Canales, Josh Emrich, and JW and Melissa Buchanan, AKA The Little Friends of Printmaking. Missed it? Go read it now.
Good read, right? Especially the sections where Jose and The Little Friends of Printmaking use a particular beer can to visually explain just how tricky a palette that little aluminum cylinder is. In doing so, they also highlight just how talented they are to have triumphed despite the medium’s restraints. Up today: Josh Emrich. The Colorado-based designer and illustrator has designed more than 100 craft beer and spirit labels. Here, he explains his process on four. Cheers!
Grimm Brothers Brewhouse’s Fearless Youth Dunkel Lager and Little Red Cap Alt Style Ale
This is the brand that — five years ago — jumpstarted my specialization in design for craft beer. When I began working with Grimm Brothers, I saw great potential in linking the geek and craft beer geek audiences. Each Grimm Brothers beer features an original Grimm fairy tale, but with some nuances to keep these familiar stories fresh for modern audiences. For instance, Little Red Cap is depicted as empowered, holding an axe that makes her more dangerous than the Big Bad Wolf. It was also important to curate a fresh, more sophisticated illustration style for the brand. Instead of going the traditional comic book or fantasy art route, I drew upon my cartoon moderne heroes like Mary Blair and Eyvind Earle, whose artwork helped inform the original Disney fairy tale animations, but were never fully realized on screen.
Uinta Brewing’s Cutthroat Pale Ale and Hop Notch IPA
As Uinta expanded outside of their home state of Utah, they needed a brand identity that better told their story. Uinta is named after the Uinta mountain range, the only range that runs east to west in the Rocky Mountains and a symbol of the company’s road-less-traveled approach. We hit upon the idea of using a compass to orient the mountains east-to-west within the logo. The compass also stands for Uinta’s purpose and intentionality: Uinta doesn’t aimlessly create their beers — they do it having a clear direction in mind. Like their bottles, the compass has been incorporated around the shoulder of the can.
Each Uinta beer takes you to an aspirational time and place. For this reason, I drew upon vintage travel posters and fruit crate labels as inspiration. To inject a youthful quality, I used bright, flat colors, which also help each brand stand out from their brothers, as well as competing beers on the shelf. The artwork transfers easily from bottles to cans due to the simplicity of the color palette and style.
Uinta Brewing’s 801 Pilsner
801 Pilsner is Uinta Brewing Co.’s new Community Builder beer. It’s sold only in Utah (801 is the area code for Salt Lake City) and a portion of the proceeds benefit a rotating local non-profit. The 801 logotype was inspired by the hand-painted numbers used on Bonneville land speed racers — not only is this a local connection, but it suggests that this beer has some additional attitude over other pilsners. Because 801 was Uinta’s first beer brand designed completely with cans in mind, we had the opportunity to play off the heritage of classic American beer cans. In terms of production, cans are great for producing metallic graphics, so we incorporated gold into the design, as well as the can topper. Can inks vary in opacity, so we used this to our advantage to create additional contrast. The result is a can that just feels great in your hand.
Uinta Brewing’s Wyld Extra Pale Ale and Baba Black Lager
Uinta Brewing smartly invested in can boxes to better protect their cans. Also, can boxes are highly effective for creating billboard displays in stores. For Uinta’s Organic Line duo packs, I used interconnecting shapes that create a seamless pattern when the boxes are stacked.
Find Josh at Dribbble and on Twitter.
Want to learn even more about designing for cans? Check out Label Design: Make Your Packaging Fizz with Kendrick Kidd via Skillshare.
Find more Process stories on our blog Courtside. Have a suggestion? Contact stories@dribbble.com.
