CRAFT BREWERY SWEYNBEER
Craft Brewery Sweynbeer is a brewery in Elewijt, Belgium. They asked me to design their house style, logo and beer labels. Great! Because if there is one thing I enjoy as much as drinking a great beer, it's designing a label for one! This great art direction job is ongoing, and new beers are released regularily. But is all started with one triptych.
For the design, the brewery wanted to start from and old local legend linked to their name: the Sweynbeer. But research showed that there is very little known about this legend. It goes a little something like this:
King Charles The Great had a treasure chest hidden in the woods. Every night, this chest was guarded by black boars (Sweynberen) and a black dragon with nine heads. But halfway through the night their shift ended and the chest was now guarded by white boars and a white dragon with seven heads. That's about it! Nobody knows why. And the contents of the treasure? Some say knowlegde, but nobody really knows.
Today craft brewery Sweynbeer is vested in the Sweynbeerstraat, hence the name.
But the lack of information is a good thing! Because it gives you more space to play with the designs and the stories. We decided that we would design the three labels as one big tableau. Where the three flagship beers would each have a part of the forest scene on them. The blonde would have the black boar and dragon, the porter would show the white boar and dragon, and the IPA would be the centre piece, with the chest.
A render of the first triptych:
(ltr) Fiery Blonde, Chili IPA, Smoked Porter
And since we went for the version where the chest would contain only knowlegde, we filled it up with the secret ingredients. The added benefit is that the label with the chest is a very versatile one. A different beer? Different ingredients in the chest! This way we could make a whole bunch of delicious treasures for the dragons to guard.
Below you'll find all designs for labels, bottle caps, and stationaries.
The flagship beers: (ltr) Fiery Blonde, Chili IPA, Smoked Porter
Sweynbeer launched a seasonal Tripel beer which contained squid ink, making the beer black as night, while it actually testes quite fruity. For the label, we of course needed a cool looking octopus, but to match with the general theme, the boar (the sweynbeer) still had to be incorporated. So why not give it a cool diving helmet. The legend of the Sweynbeer is getting richer and richer. And it's now a tale about fine beers!
Next was the kettle soured "Bloody Michelle". A beer inspired by the mexican cocktail Michelada, with pilsner, tomato juice, tacasco, lime and salt. That's right, this is a beer with tomato!
The theme was easlily set, and since a cocktail with tomato juice immediatly reminded us of Bloody Mary, the name came quick as well.
This label takes our boar to new adventures. This time it lands in the ruthless desert of Mexico. Away from multi-headed dragons, or krakens, but with a new little monster watching its every move.
I love how after setting the initial ground stage of this visually delicious story, it's open season to travel the world and add detail. After all, why wouldn't a beer bottle be something you want to look at?
The green hopped Saison was printed on gold paper. This seasonal beer comes in a 75cl bottle and reintroduces the dragons on the canvas.
The Tripel Inked label was designd for 75cl bottles.
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