Beyond Distilling
Just outside the heart of Charleston, a team of distillers and educators employing a growing staff of adults with disabilities, began distilling tropical craft spirits. The brand design of the new distillery and brewery celebrates the company’s impactful mission and their iconic city with a consistent aesthetic from brand identity to custom labels.
Based in North Charleston, the distillery launched with their initial distribution targets focused on their local bar and restaurant market. Therefore, the brand makes reference to the unique architectural styles, color palette, and vibrance of Charleston.
Based on the distillery’s name, the primary logomark tells a story of a path through a door that leads to possibilities beyond. This concept is repeated in various ways throughout much of the brand’s products and collateral.
The distillery staff employs several people with autism. While no two people are the same, studies have revealed that creating a clean, minimal aesthetic with a distinct visual language and definitive colors often aided their experience in the workplace. Therefore, we created a broad color palette that can be widely adapted yet still relates to the brand’s tropical aesthetic.
When thinking about the brand’s future, we understood that their product line would need to grow and change while still maintaining a consistent aesthetic across all assets. To address that need, we created a series of label templates that mimic the concept behind the logo mark and create a world beyond the open door. While our team illustrated the inaugural Tropical Gin label, it was imperative that the distillery have a template that allowed them to work with different artists/illustrators overtime.
With the company’s future growth in mind, we began crafting designs for future products like canned cocktails and beer cans and future merchandise like tap handles and t-shirts. Consistent with the brand identity and the spirit labels, these assets all utilize a steady color palette and typography and continue to play off of the themes of stepping through a Charleston doorway.
