A bonus edition of the Sticker Stories Podcast featuring the Left Hand Brewing Design Team in the Marketing Studio for a fun conversation around label design and more. Some of our favorite label designs we see are those coming from the craft beer world. It's a growing and very competitive space that demands creativity in design to catch the attention of beer lovers everywhere.
Have a listen to our conversation or read below!
Jesse: My name is Jesse. We're here at StickerGiant in the marketing studio. Today we have a couple of special guests with us from Left Hand Brewery. We have Britt and Kearby. I will let you guys give an introduction to more about who you are and what you do at Left Hand.
Britt Freeman: Okay. I'm Britt Freeman. I'm the Design Manager at Left Hand. I work with Kearby as well as another person in our team, Naomi. We are charged with doing all of the packaging, bringing all of the merchandise, doing all the designing for these things, as well as assisting our sales team, and then different departments of the brewery with any of their design needs.
Jesse: Awesome.
Kearby Milliner: My name is Kearby Milliner. I'm the Designer at Left Hand. Britt is my boss, and she already laid it out. We do everything in-house, from advertising to any sales promotion assets, packaging, merchandise, social media. What else? Anything that has a graphic on it.
Britt: If you look at it or encounter it.
Kearby: And it has our logo on it, we probably touched it.
Britt: Or we should have.
Kearby: We should have, yes. We tried to.
[laughter]
Jesse: What's it like being designers for Left Hand? Do you feel pressure with that big brand? It's a national beer brand.
Britt: It's a national and international beer brand. We're in 41 states in DC. Then we're in-
Kearby: China, Europe.
Britt: South Korea, Japan.
Kearby: I think that's it.
Britt: Europe-- lots of places in Europe [laughs].
Jesse: Yes. What are some of the projects you've been working on, say, this last week in the design world?
Britt: Since it's still towards the beginning of the annual year, we're finishing up all of our 2018 packaging, so, new brands that will be released in the market in the next couple of months, from the cans to the posters and those related things.
Kearby: Six-pack carriers. Are we allowed to share what those beers are or?
Britt: Yes.
Kearby: I guess they're out in the world. We're working on a Radler and a Pale Ale exclusive to Colorado that will be in next can packs across the US. Belgian Double Nitro, Blackcurrant Cream Ale Nitro.
Britt: Right now, the Chai Milk Stout Nitro.
Kearby: Chai Milk Stout just came out. We're putting in one of our Double IPAs in the cans, so working on transferring that artwork for bottle artwork. Redesigning it a little bit, putting it on a can. Oktoberfest is coming out in a can, we're working that design.
Britt: A lot of packaging artwork right now, as well as one of our biggest accounts, is our testing room. We're always creating things for them, whether it's merchandise to support the new beers, or different calendars, and menus.
Kearby: Any events that the testing room has, we'll design all the promotional assets for that, each month or two.
Jesse: The two of you aren't busy at all, it sounds like.
Kearby: Not at all. So much free time to do podcasts and drink water out of mugs.
[laughter]
Jessie: This is a question for each of you individually. What led you to be a designer? Britt, I guess we'll just start with you.
Britt: Okay. This is cheesy. I've always wanted to be a designer. My mom had a story that when I was three years oldish, I was in the back of the car. We were driving down the road and I made some comment about how it was really neat that you always knew where the happy meals were, because you could see the yellow arches and you knew that was McDonald's. I was relating images to experiences and always thought that was a very cool thing.
Kearby: Britt as a three-year-old is like, "McDonald's is such a great brand. Look at their branding". Wow, so weird.
Britt: Yes. From there, in high school, I got into commercial art classes. Went to college for graphic design, and worked in product and graphic design consulting for about 10 years, before coming to Left Hand.
Jesse: That is awesome, McDonald's arches led you to design. [laughs]
Britt: I just knew at three.
Kearby: Happy meals were just such a great association of branding and design, that she was like, "I've got to get in this industry."
[laughter]
Jesse: That's perfect.
Kearby: Mine is a little bit less than that. I'm only 24, so I'm the baby at Left Hand. I don't have 10 years of branding, consulting under my belt. I always wanted to be an artist. Growing up and everything, I went to Boulder for school and I started out as an art major, and then, realized I did not want to be a starving artist at all. I got into the advertising school because, of course, right when I graduated, CU finally got a design program.
I was in the ad program and did the creative track. Loved art direction. Loved actually designing Ad, so I knew that that's what I wanted to do and got the job at Left Hand three months after graduation. Then from there, been here for almost two years, so I got pretty lucky. But yes,I just didn't want to be a starving artist, so now, I'm a starving designer and it's great.
[laughter]
Jesse: Designer's fun though.
Kearby: [laughs] Yes. It's more like functional. Art is great, but I wanted to make something that people actually would see and had more of a purpose and a function than just expressing myself. I wasn't really into that all that much as much as the other art kids, so I was like, "nuh, this isn't for me" so, yes.
Jesse: Design is probably one of the biggest challenges we run into with people coming to us for custom stickers and labels that they struggle with it. We do a lot of work with other breweries, including yourself sometimes as well. What would you say to people out there, or maybe, take us through your approach to a new design, what advise would you have for someone who's like, "Okay, we have a new beer coming out."? Or maybe it's a new product and they're just starting to approach that label, what's made or some tips or tricks just quick insight that you could offer?
Britt: I think it's important to start with what is the item, what is the beer, what are the flavors, what is the seasonality, where's this going to be sold, is it going to be a perennial, be a really long-running one, is it going to be really short. I think if you look at those parameters first before you start thinking about color or any other art elements.
Kearby: Yes. I agree. Britt and I have a certain taste that we really like, it's hard to not just be like, "Well, I just want to make it look like this because I think it's pretty." You have to take a step back and be like, "Okay, what are we trying to communicate? What are we trying to sell?" Especially with beers, specifically what's the style? I can't make a porter hot pink just because I want to make a hot pink because I love hot pink. It needs to speak to the beer's styling, what it tastes like, what it looks like, and then, what the name is and what we're trying to convey.
I think you have to take yourself out in your own preferences, in your own aesthetic, you often times have to step away from that and talk to people, whether it's your direct consumers or people around the office or people who are higher up than you in making the bigger decisions of like, "Okay, what do you want to see? What do you want us to convey?" and then take that into consideration first before you just start drawing stuff because it's fun.
Jesse: Does some of it come back to the brews, the ones creating that beer? Do they ever get into that kind of giving you ideas, or?
Kearby: Everyone likes to give ideas. [laughs]
Jesse: Yes. Well, I know that. [laughs]
Kearby: We get ideas all the time.
Britt: They're really great.
Kearby: Yes.
Jesse: [laughs]
Britt: We do-- I wouldn't say that we necessarily talk to each individual brewer, but I would say that both Kearby and I make an effort to talk to people in different departments about different projects just to get their feeling, and everyone likes to be included in some sort of way. But we do, when it comes to what the beer is, our director of brewing and some of our brewing leads, write general statements about the beer, general color, general-- what the IB use would be, to kind of give us a little bit of some parameters.
Kearby: Our director of brewing has a big say in final artwork too. He's one of the people, the main guys that signs off on our works. I think he probably takes what he knows from the brews on stuff and what they divide, they want to go forth and he's kind of their voice in that process.
Jesse: We talked about how big of a brand Left Hand is in the brewing world and in the world in general. Branding guidelines, I imagine you guys have branding guidelines. How hard is it to operate or easy is it within the parameters you're given for designing?
Britt: Since it's just us, we have a little bit of flexibility to make some decisions on the fly. When it comes to our packaging, we have set some pretty strict templating to be our grounding to allow all these different beer labels to have their own feelings and their own personality.
Kearby: Yes, but there is a certain set of rules that we stick to. If boxes are sitting next to each other on the shelf, we've got a big bar that goes across, whether it's whatever color the brand is. Obviously, everyone knows our logo. That's the biggest part of the Left Hand to the left with the bar and then style name. We're consistent on that way. I'd say that we pretty much have the freedom and the main space above those set guidelines to do whatever we want.
Britt: We've allowed a lot more flexibility within that part because we're so rigid on logo placement on packaging. We have a couple of pink cans that we're working on right now actually. We can do that, but our logo is going to be where our logo is. One of our things that crosses out of packaging but within other posters and other design pieces we do, is the Left Hand logo, is on the left side. The end. It’s either in the middle or it’s on the left.
Jesse: That's interesting, I’ve never noticed that before. I’m going to look next time.
Kearby: Well, if you ever see something not made by us with our logo on it and it’s to the right, you will notice. Because we like to lose our minds, like “Oh, my gosh, we did not make that.” It's the left hand, it looks really weird. It makes me uncomfortable to see it on the right. Oh, my God, I don’t feel good.
[crosstalk]
Jesse: [laughs] That makes sense.
Kearby: With our artwork though, I think something about Left Hand too, that we're lucky as designers. I think a lot of people would say is, we don't have a super rigid system when it comes to the actual design of each brand, like logo placement and certain type places we use and stuff like that. That stays consistent. Like I said, we have a lot of freedom on the actual artwork of each beer brand, that also makes it left hand. Each beer very much has a strong personality. You don't see the Milk Stout Cow and say that it looks exactly like any of our other can designs or bottle designs, which I think is unique to us and cool, and as designers as a pack because we don't have this very rigid system. Every beer brand looks the same but it's just different color with a different fun. We get to draw, illustrate a lot of aspects to school.
Jesse: Do you like designing the can or the bottle label more?
Kearby: Well, now that we've switched over to mostly cans which is new, 2016 was the first can that we ever packaged, that's just what we work on more. Bottles seem a little bit of we've got to transfer this over back to a bottle now because, oh, we’re just found out we're bottling this. We don't really bottle a tonne of beers par se, it's Milk Stout Nitro and Sawtooth are [unintelligible 00:13:33] beers. But everything else is pretty much in a can now. I prefer can, but it is difficult because we have a color restriction on cans that we don’t have on bottle artworks. We print directly onto the can, and so, we get six colors, three of which are red, white, and black, and our logo. All the artwork has to fit in the other three colors that we get.
Jesse: The beer label-
Britt: It’s a design challenge.
Kearby: It’s challenging. But it's fun. It's problem solving to figure out how can we make this look more than six colors, but we only use six colors on the can, which is tough.
Jesse: How is it designing within all the legal things you have to place on every can, package, bottle et cetera?
Britt: It's just the way the world works.
[laughter]
Kearby: We don’t really think about it anymore. I want to skip back to your question, but with the independent seal, you ask about what-
Jesse: Yes, that was my next question, was independent.
Kearby: We place it on every package now starting from when we adopted the seal. It's on the same spot on every can, and every bottle, and every box. At first, we had to move all the stuff around to make it fit and sizable and also look good within the design.
Now it's a second thought. In all of our art files like the seal is on there and it's locked in the same place on every file, and so it's just a matter of working around it.
Jesse: So you guys have probably a lot of templates. You just pull up the template. It’s got everything and so now okay, here we go. Now we're going to design around where we know everything's going to be placed in regards to the independent Craft association-
Kearby: We’ll just pull out an old file and delete everything except for what you need and start over.
Jesse: Yeah, and for those people out there who don't know the Independent Craft Brewers Association logo, if you will, started last year, if I’m recalling right.
Britt: It was right before GABF, so it would have been mid September-
Kearby: 2017.
Britt: - 2017.
Jesse: Right. Have you guys heard any feedback on that? Any impact from putting that independent label on the beer?
Britt: I think when it comes down to it, there's a consumer education component to it, and since September was only five months ago, it takes time to get that onto a package and then get it out to consumers. I think you are really just starting to see it rolling into the market on off premise right now. I think time will tell a bit more.
Jesse: I really like it. I know when we saw it coming out, we thought that's a really great idea to just showcase the brewers out there that are independent and stay independent given that some of them have been sold and bought and lots is changing in the market. I think it's a really cool thing that they're doing there in the craft brew industry.
Kearby: Yes, it’s definitely a lot easier on the consumer. I won't say it's a lot easier on the brewer side to incorporate that into a tonne things, but I think from Left Hand standpoint, it’s definitely worth it. But yes, a lot of our employees are like, "When are we going to start seeing the seal on all of our stuff?" and we're like we have plates and stuff that have to be changed, and packaging, it’s just a really long process. We just now have some packages out.
Britt: Two packages. Three packages.
Kearby: Actually have a seal on the packaging. But we've got to get through all the other products that we had before that didn’t have it. I think for everyone-
Britt: We’re not just going to throw away packaging that we have.
Kearby: Yes, boxes that don’t have the seal on it. I think for everyone, it's going to take a little bit for it to be really prominent. I think it will be great for consumers to see it and be like, "Oh." If they don't see it on, I’m not going to say a brewery name, they're going to be like, "I thought that they were independent, but they don’t have a seal." Maybe he'll buy Left Hand, maybe whatever.
Jesse: Got you.
Kearby: That would be cool. But I do think it will take some time just because of printing processes. It's not a really quick rollout.
Jesse: Especially for how many products and beers and all the things you went through to start. You guys are designing and putting a lot of different things out there in the world, so I could imagine that would take a few months, if not a year, to get it flushed through.
That being said, the brewery industry is huge. You go into a liquor store in these liquor warehouses and there's tonnes of beer up and down the aisle, so there's a lot out there. What goes through your mind when you're thinking about how I’m I going to make this new beer stand out? Or, you guys are a big enough brand where maybe it's not as critical for you patching design but just for the-
Britt: Design is always critical.
[laughter]
Jesse: There you go. I was actually leaning towards that.
[laughter]
I wanted to hear how you’d approach that and now you nailed it already, design is critical. What really is the thing that you focus on to make something stand out when you’re thinking of it's on a shelf? How are you going to get someone to see it?
Britt: I think that that's always a challenge. It's important to be aware of what other breweries are doing because you don't want to end up thinking, "We're going to put gears all over these cans, it's going to be awesome", and then be like, "Oh, they did that too." You’ll need to be aware of the market and what other breweries are doing to make sure that you are being original. There are tons of beers, and there's tonnes of beer names, there is tonnes of breweries. It's important to be aware of what else is going on. I think it's also important to consider, when you are designing it, what the package look like from eight feet away versus right at the cooler door, how is your eye traveling across it? Do you know what style it is right away?
Kearby: Yes, that's big for our sales team. We've simplified our packaging a lot in the last couple of years, and especially now that it's all in-house Britt and I tried to make our packaging bold but really to the point, which our sales team loves.
They're like, "We love that our new IPA says IPA really bright, big, and bold." Because there's a hundred IPAs on the shelf. If I don't know anything about beer but I'm like, "I want to try an IPA because everyone says it's really good," I'm probably going to go towards the one that's like "Yes, that one is an IPA and it's got hops on it and it looks fun and clean and refreshing. I'm going to pick that one instead of the super intricate, really deep meaning, lots going on, IPA is really small at the bottom and it's bright purple. You're not going to know that that's what I'm looking for.
I think for our sales team, it's important that the style is very clear of like, I'm a consumer, I want a Radler or a pale ale or a stout. Make sure that they know that that's the beer inside the can, not just "Oh, that's pretty."
Consumers are smarter than we give them credit for. They know what kind of beer they want and they're going to at least look for that style first before they pick based off, again, with the hot pink. "It's hot pink. I want something that's hot pink." That's not the number one deciding factor. Maybe for me it is, but I'm not a normal consumer. I think just being direct with your design is important, especially with IPAs, there's so many freaking IPAs and they're all lined up. It's overwhelming to walk up to the cooler and just see 800 options.
Jesse: What's your favorite beer? Just style, you don't have to specifically shout a Left Hand one, unless you want to.
Kearby: I love sour beers, and I also love Goses, which are a not as aggressive sour beer. I love Avery's Gose. It's delicious.
Jesse: That is a good beer.
Kearby: Our Gose coming out is really good too. We have a Gose coming out, in the Spring?
Britt: Early Summer.
Kearby: Early Summer?
Britt: It's going to be a raspberry and lemon peel Gose.
Jesse: Yum.
Kearby: It's delicious. It's super fruity and whatever but it's so good.
Britt: It's delicious.
Jesse: I was going to say that's not fair you guys get to talk and have already tasted it, but that makes sense.
Kearby: Yes, it's good.
Britt: I like boozy barrel aged beers. The end.
[laughter]
If it's been in a barrel, if it's got more than 10 1/2% alcohol, then I probably want to drink it.
Jesse: Yes. My personal favorite is hoppy beers. I like IPAs. There's a million of them as you eluded to, but Imperial is usually my go-to. I like to try all sorts of ones and pale ales as well. I think you're right with the talking about the design. I've seen some that are so visual and catch my eye and then I'm like, "What kind of beer is this?" You can't tell until you get real close.
Kearby: Yes, and there's definitely a ton of beer geeks out there that totally love that stuff. As design geeks too, sometimes I'll pick up a beer just because I'm like, "That is beautiful. That is the prettiest packaging I've ever seen" and then it sucks. It's tastes horrible. I think for a general trying to make sales and sell our beer to as many people as we can.
Britt: We're proud of our beer.
Kearby: Yes.
Britt: I think our cans being colorful and the way that we do our illustrations, I think they look really good in coolers. When you're out on the lake or at a pool and you've got a bunch of our beers in the cooler-
Kearby: You're going to pick ours. [laughs]
Britt: You're going to pick ours. They look good.
Jesse: I would agree and I think you hit on something we didn't really-- You pointed out a little, but color. Color is so big in design.
Kearby: Color makes you feel things. We always say that. It makes you feel things.
Jesse: Color makes you feel things. I like that, yes, and we know all about color here.
[laughter]
Color matching with labels and all the stickers we see and all the fun designs. I'm very guilty of what you just said. I will go to the store and pick something because it looks really cool.
Kearby: Totally.
Jesse: Or we printed it and I'm like, "Oh, I got to try their beer." I'm guilty of doing that too without really thinking through the purchase decision. Anything else you guys want to say about Left Hand Brewing and the design work you're doing?
Kearby: I don't know.
Britt: It's fun and it's challenging. One thing that I love about designing at a brewery is that, yes we do packaging, yes we do sales and merchandise and all these things, and because of that, we get to do something different everyday sometimes. That's a lot of fun.
Kearby: We have a really wide range of beers that we make, which is cool too. We don't just make stouts, milk stout is huge, but we're not just a dark beer company or we don't just thrive on IPAs so we make 18 different IPAs. We're lucky that we've got a pep reporter coming out, which is so random but it's going to be fun to design for and the Radler and IPA and pale ale. We have so many different styles and they're all really good. That's fun too that we get to do such a wide range of different products, if you will.
Jesse: Variety is the spice of life.
Kearby: Yes. That's fun.
Jesse: Well, thank you, Brett. Thank you, Kearby, so much for joining us here today and checking through design with us. We'd love to hear about it and it's great hearing your insights into what you do at Left Hand.
Brett: Thanks for having us.
Jesse: Of course.
Kearby: Yes, thank you.
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