BIG LUG BREWING CO.
Brewing since 2015, Big Lug Brewing Co. is based in Indianapolis, IN. Upon establishment, Big Lug worked with CODO agency to develop their first five beer can labels for a defined brand presence. Once they grew their selection outside those initial five, the brewery collaborated with a variety of local artists for their packaging design.
These partnerships gave Big Lug Brewing a visual identity deeply rooted in the community. And where it benefitted from showcasing different styles and heartbeats within the city, it was lacking a consistent look to connect and grow their reach. During my employment with Sahm’s Hospitality Group, a goal of mine was to help define the culture of the brewery. Through branding workshops and visual explorations of the brand, I was able to create clearer guidelines for logo usage, brand voice, brand colors, and a guide that allows the brewery to continue it’s collaborative relationship with artists and designers but with parameters around logo usage, language placement, and fonts. .
YEAR: December 2021
EMPLOYER: Sahm’s Hospitality Group
ROLE: Brand Director
PIRATE CAT – CAN DESIGN
The first can label I was asked to create for Big Lug was a rebrand of Big Lug’s Monon Mash, a year-round beer. The beer is named after a well-known outdoor cat, Pirate Cat, who loved greeting travelers on the Monon Trail in Indianapolis. The creative brief for this piece was to create an icon, pattern, and two colors that could be applied to Big Lug’s can template.
WAIST DEEP – CAN DESIGN
Waist Deep runs on a 2 month cycle in the summer time. It was pitched as a grass-mower beer for lazy Sundays. In the attachments below, I explored icons of either backyard pool parties or lake-side sitting.
LUCHA LIMA – CAN DESIGN
Lucha Lima is a seasonal beer – usually running around Cinco de Mayo. At their restaurants, they ran weekly specials on tex-mex dishes and pints of Lucha Lima. The creative brief was to lean into the food pairing for a fun citrus beer.
TOPANGA – CAN DESIGN
Topanga is a crushable blonde ale (yes, like Boy Meets World) and they wanted to keep the slogan from an outdated design “Everyone has a blonde crush”.
