The Steam Machine Brewing Co. approached us to create a brand identity and packaging design for its new range of craft beers. Their team of eccentric scientists had poured their heart and soul into crafting recipes; experimenting with water chemistry and yeast biology to create the perfect beer – they wanted a brand identity and packaging design that reflected this devotion.
The craft beer industry is booming worldwide and in a crowded market it was essential we positioned the Steam Machine Brewing Co to stand out amongst their competitors. We worked closely with The Steam Machine Brewing Co. to gain an understanding of the company’s ethos and future aspirations and create a brand identity to truly capture the attention of its target audiences and packaging design that would differentiate it from its competitors.
The new brand identity was rolled out across multiple channels including packaging design, POS and digital platforms and the company is steaming ahead after they got to meet Sir Richard Branson as part of Virgin’s Start-up #MentorMeBranson competition when Sir Richard gave our new brand identity and packaging design the green light!
With the brand name at the heart of our thinking, we were heavily inspired by the steam punk counter culture and Victorian retro-futuristic technologies. We created a bespoke, playful and eclectic illustrative brand identity that changes colour to depict the wide range of beers on offer. It was essential whatever we created would work on everything from the bottle labelling to pump clips in bars.
Within a year of developing the brand, the product was stocked in over 30 bars nationally, but since 2015 production has grown from 1200L to 12,000L! The beers are sold in premium bottle shops and craft beer bars up and down the UK from North Scotland to the South Coast of England and they are rated in the top fifty breweries of England from craft beer review site UNTAPPD.
We spend a lot of time crafting our recipes, but know that before a single drop reaches our customer’s taste buds they’ll see our keg or bottle label – it was essential that we got the brand identity and packaging design right. The designers did an outstanding job – the final creative designs surpassed how I could ever imagine them to look. We are really proud of our brand identity and our customers love it too.
Nick Smith – Founder & Master Brewer, The Steam Machine Brewing Co.
