Labels and other brand elements for a local craft beer brewery
Green Monster & Co
The who and why, or long story short
Once upon a time, there were 5 friends who liked to drink craft beer. They loved it so much that one day bought a brewery! This brewery was making great beer but was pretty bad at marketing. One of their beers, Green Monster, was a real star in the world of craft beer fans, but no one knew who was the manufacturer of it, so the friends renamed the entire brewery in honor of the famous star.
And this is how the Green Monster Brewery was born :)
Client /
Green Monster Brewery
Role /
illustration, design
Awards /
Year /
2022
The Brief and process
When these friends found me, they have these old labels, a plain new logo (without any other Identity elements)...
and a question, about how to make new packages that would stand out on a shelf that typically looks like this in the craft beer stores:
Then we dived deeper and found out, that the personality of Green Monster Brewery would be described as a modern hipster or even punk, a little crazy man with marvelous humor sense, funny and friendly. It is interesting and expressive, it prioritizes quality and likes new trends.
Therefore, with the eclecticism of kraft beer shelves in mind, they have chosen a style direction with a minimal but still humorous approach:
*Images in this moodboard are taken just as a reference from various Internet locations!
And we created a uniform label system where every beer has its own main color, a lot of "white space", and a funny lineart character - any kind of monster.
1. Green Monster IPA (Indian Pale Ale)
As I've mentioned, people who like IPA-style beer really know Green Monster IPA, at least those from Kaunas and Vilnius.
- Oh, what a great IPA! - I'd heard a lot.
The bitterness of the hops is matched with the softness of caramel malt and oats. And the absolutely wonderful aroma sets the mood for solid relaxation: just like my bigfoot version of the monster, you can crawl into a comfortable armchair and stretch your legs on a soft rug... oops :)
2. Mango Milkshake (American Pale Ale)
A wonderfully fragrant ale with a delicate mango aftertaste - balanced for women, but also loved by men. Why Milkshake? Brewers use lactose to add sweetness and a thicker mouthfeel to beers because it's a sugar that brewing yeast can't ferment.
The customer described this beer as thick, creamy, and hazy, but fruity and light as well. And from those lightness and milk foam images came the idea of label illustration: a funny monstrous SPA procedure, after which the legs become so light, so airy, even too much :)
3. Deep Dive (Double Dry Hopped IPA)
As the word "double" prompts - this beer is stronger and more intense than ordinary IPA, cos it goes through two dry hops-adding phases. But when I asked clients to describe Deep Dive with only one word, it wasn't the word "strong", they've chosen "heterogeneous" and explained that when tasting you can feel bitterness, fullness, and light sweetness, fruitiness together.
So, it remained to combine that heterogeneity, duality, and dryness in the illustration, and spice it up with a pinch of humor :)
4. JetLag (International Amber Lager)
A good brewery must have at least one traditional type of beer, a very familiar taste, perfect for those days when you don't want anything fancy. So with a challenge to create a non-boring traditional beer, this international amber lager was born. And then the challenge went to me: how to create an interesting illustration for a very ordinary and unremarkable beer? Therefore, I concentrated on the name itself.
Jetlag is a phenomenon that somehow affects everyone who has changed several time zones too quickly, even monsters :) And then you feel like double-headed, half of you wants to sleep and the other, to eat. Both wishes are very routine, but to eat some "snails" is an extraordinary choice of meal, at least for Lithuanian monsters :)
5. Kosmosas (Baltic Porter)
This is, close to our region, Baltic porter beer and its name Kosmosas remained the only Lithuanian one of all the names of the Green Monster's beers. As you can guess it means cosmos, and (at least in the Lithuanian language) cosmos describes not only the cosmos space but something incredibly strange as well. Something that we can see with our eyes, but still can't believe, something really magic...
6. Kalėdinis Kosmosas (Christmas Spiced Porter)
Speaking of magic, as the most magical time of the year approaches, Green Monster gave its fans a limited edition festive version of Kosmosas chocolate Baltic porter. They flavored it subtly with orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and allspice, and Voila! Christmas roast pig, or rather a monster's dish is on the table!
Green Monster Brewery Identity elements
In addition to the label's design concept, I had to create a whole brewery identity, cos clients had only a plain logo. So I defined a color palette and typography and made a monstrous pattern...
Thanks for your attention :)
Enjoyed this work? Check out more Green Monster Brewery labels:
More flavors, please! - additional labels for the Green Monster brewery.
In cooperation with other breweries - labels for beers brewed in collabs.
