Illustration and Branding

Art Direction: Jason Kernevich & Scott Laserow

Overview

The objective of this project was to take an existing assigned food or beverage company and create an illustrated campaign for them that would target a specific audience. When presented with the opportunity to design for a beer company, I was excited and inspired by the local labels found at smaller distributors in Philly. For this project, it was vital to understand the brand that exists and the way that they already advertise their projects. 

Approach

Through research I found that for this beer Coors was most specifically targeting “the outdoorsman” and I decided that for my campaign I wanted to expand that audience to outdoors people in a more general sense. Taking inspiration from the Colorado mountain scenery that they consistently use in their branding and the visual aesthetic of vintage national park postcards, I decided to illustrate beer cans that would show off the beauty of Colorado. The use of the postcard inspiration was helpful in maintaining the outdoors aesthetic that Coors is rooted in. I used a color palette that very closely resembled that of the existing Coors Banquet branding because this aspect is one of the best tools for brand recognition. This created the opportunity for a more challenging illustration problem as well as a more cohesive design.

Extending the brand, I considered essentials to a campaign revolving around beer and decided that the two most important aspects were a beer tap and six-packs. With the six-pack design, I wanted to create a reveal for the cans and decided it best to keep the nature illustrations off of the outer box. This gave the opportunity to create depth in a brand and thinking about hiking and enjoying a beer I took inspiration from flannel fabrics and blankets that hikers would wear to connect to their experience of drinking Coors Banquet. Following this, I took the branding and applied it to signage after considering that this was an important aspect of any campaign.