Fresh from the mountains
Dru Bru
Brand Refresh and Packaging
Seattle has more micro-breweries than most cities in North America, and a particular penchant for bold beer styles like IPAs. When Dru Ernst decided to follow his dreams and expand his fledgling beer operation into a full-scale brewery and tap room, he decided to zig to the zag, creating a range of easy-drinking, down-to-earth beers that invite even a casual beer drinker to sit down and enjoy a pint or two.
And, rather than pack one more bar into Seattle’s dense beer landscape, Dru and his wife Sara built their first brewery an hour away from the city, tucked into the mountainside at Snoqualmie Pass. Fast forward a few years later and their thriving beer label was ready for a design refresh as they moved into larger-scale production and canning.
The new design maintains the bold typographic visual language of the original brand while simplifying the lettering to echo the no-frills attitude of Dru’s approach to beer-making. In addition to the logo and can design, we worked on a range of elements DRU BRU can use to represent their brand in the taprooms, in marketing and on their delivery vehicles.
Packaging
One of the driving factors that led to the brand update was the brewery's imminent expansion into high-volume can production. The prior design scheme was optimized for a taproom experience rather than the retail shelf. A playful and widely varied color palette provides the cornerstone of the new can design, and—paired with a series of tone-on-tone background patterns—allows the brewery to easily add new and seasonal brand extensions as they continue to grow.
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