Project Prompt
Pursue an individual or independent goal. The objective of this class is to create a portfolio worthy project that enhances the student’s MFA aspirations.
Fun fact about me, I love craft beer and brewing beer and it has always been a dream of mine to open up a brewpub.
In college, my best friend Dan and I developed an interest in craft beer and brewing. We developed a craft beer review website named Grab Me A Beer and began reviewing the beer we were trying. We also went on tours of breweries and grew to develop a following. As our interests grew, we began to brew beer in my dad's kitchen trying to brew crazy creations like Cotton Candy Pale Ale and Mango Habanero IPA. Upon graduating college and growing busier and busier, we didn't have the time to keep up with reviews and so we shut down the website and slowly stopped brewing beer.
When given the project prompt for this studio course, I wanted to take the opportunity to develop a beer branding and beer labels to see what I could come up with as if we were pursuing our dream.
The Name
I started sharing my project idea with and discussing how someday I would love to make this a reality. Of course, Dan agreed. So I began to develop this branding project as if we were starting our own brewpub now.
The initial research for this project consisted of discovering what our brewery branding would exactly be. During this time I looked at how several breweries began, their branding, mission, and more.
I began to discuss with Dan what we want this to look like. We commonly all went back to it being different but true to us. We also thought back to our past, beginning brewing out of the kitchen of my dad’s house and fermenting beer in the basement. We also thought about past memories of enjoying beers with friends and family. All these things tied into creating the House Beer Social name and branding idea.
Development
After establishing the name and idea, I began to sketch logo ideas. I thought it was a good idea to have a staple series of beers and then exclusive beers. I wanted to seperate the two ideas both through naming, color, and illustrations. After establishing the logo design, I began to develop some other 'exclusive' beer style illustrations that were based off of either movies, music, or things that we enjoy. Below are a few of the sketches and final illustrations.
Tap Handles and More
After having the illustrations designed I began to create mockups of what potential tap handles would look like. I worked with a few companies in potentially creating actual tap handles, but found out that they were too expensive, so I decided to create my own out of wood and laser cutting the iillustrations. I also had a tin tacker sign made and stickers along the way.
