Lady Haze Brewing Company
logo, brand identity & label design
Lady Haze Brewing Company is my concept for a woman owned and operated craft beer brewery. The idea for Lady Haze is inspired by my friend Jenn, who has been in the brewing industry for over a decade. Through her I learned about an underrepresented market in the craft beer industry: women who love beer.
the challenge
Create a logo and brand identity for a woman owned and operated craft beer brewery. Apply the brand elements to deliverables such as can labels, menus, and merch.
ideation
My creative process began with conceptualizing the logo that would represent Lady Haze. I started with three mood boards. Each one represented a different element I wanted to incorporate in my design. Those elements are femininity, retro and hazy. Femininity because it's essential to the foundation of Lady Haze. Retro because of the often colorful and playful designs targeted at women shoppers. Hazy because it's in the name and how you might feel after a few beers. Together these mood boards inspired color choices, shapes, patterns and typography.
logo sketches
I sketched out various ideas for the logo while incorporating themes from my mood boards.
logo drafts: round 1
I narrowed down my sketches to a few that I felt would best work as logos. I started to experiment with typography choices.
logo drafts: round 2
I wanted to move forward with the banner and bottle cap design and started playing with color. I traded the swirled background for a wavy pattern that will become a element across the brand.
final logo
The logo I created for this brand is a classic beer emblem with a feminine twist. The bottlecap-esque backing and banner has a timeless beer regalia feel to it while the colors and type showcase the inspiration drawn from women. The wavy pattern behind the banner adds a bit of playfulness. The gradients I chose to use on the banner and backing add a sense of depth that make this logo pop. I created additional condensed versions of the logo to be used alongside or instead of the emblem when necessary.
color & typography & shapes
For this brand I wanted to choose colors that were not typically seen in beer branding and might be viewed as "girly" (something definitely not seen in beer branding.) Drawing inspiration from the sort of monochromatic designs seen on the retro soda cans in my mood boards, I established a set of purples that represents the hazy, retro, feminine spirit I want the logo to encapsulate.
For typography, I thought using a more stylized typeface for the logo would be the direction I chose. It felt like that would capture the retro aesthetic I wanted. Instead, I chose a simple all caps typeface called Bebas Neue Rounded. I selected this typeface mainly because of its legibility. The roundedness of the letters adds to the femininity of the design and the sleek mono-weight adds a touch of modernity. For my secondary typeface, I chose Gelica. This serifed typeface captures the retro quality lacking in the logo typeface and comes with a wide range of weights.
I created a few different patterns and wavy shapes to be used across branding.
label design
My next step in the branding process was to create labels for three different beers. I wanted the labels to have the same layout but have the theme of the label change to match which ever beer it's for. The idea of creating a different lady for each beer came to me and it felt like a perfect way to create thematic labels.
sketches
I first sketched ideas for the full label. I wanted to incorporate the wavy shapes that are on the background of the emblem logo. I came up with the idea to have these lady heads as the featured illustration on the labels. I then sketched my ideas for the heads of Hazy Lady, Gaia and Lilith.
drafts
My initial drafts of labels had me trying out a type arrangement for the brewery name and also features a color I ultimately chose not to include.
final labels
all put together
reflection
Creating this brand from the ground up was a really rewarding process. This was my first opportunity to create a full brand identity and I had a lot of fun doing it. I learned about how a brands elements can be utilized across a variety of applications. I also learned more about applying a concept to my designs with the woman-led aspect of this brand. Moving forward with this project I would love to create more themes for different beers and signage for the taproom.
