21st whisky

Brief 12:

21st Century Whisky

Nathan Bolton

21st Century Whisky

21st Century Whisky: Brief Overview Brief

Concept

Audience

Create a brand and packaging for an innovative 21st Century Scotch whisky that challenges category convention and rituals.

It should be one that is firmly rooted in the 21st Century and shows progression from the traditional style and design of Scotch whisky.

Audience for the product is whisky drinkers, but I am aiming this product at a younger audience to get them involved in such a product. The target age is late 20’s.

The physical ‘container’ is completely open to creativity.

Using the process of how each different whisky types are made, this will be incorporated into the main aesthetics for the branding and packaging. The process of making whisky is really interesting and very visual, each type of whisky is effected by different elements within the process of making it and I think showing this in a visual and stimulant way will create a strong eye catching bottle. This design style will be used across all the other elements within the project.

- Illustrated elements.

- Linear process style.

- Informative / Infographic aesthetics.

Background Information

Purpose

Deliverables

The Scotch whisky packaging category is steeped in a rich history of codes and imagery.

Almost all of the brands we are familiar with started way back in the 1800’s and most still echo that historical period in their physical manifestation.

The prupose of the brief is to create a new brand of whisky which conforms the the 21st century lifestyle and goes against the norms of whisky design / packaging to try and appeal to a new target audience.

1. B randing & Identity including a name for the product.

2. Packaging and label design.

Produce a name that reflects the brand’s positioning; the product is a smooth, premium blend of highland and lowland whiskies sourced from small distilleries.

There is an overt theme of masculine prowess, ‘heather and weather’, ancient castles and a world or ‘glens’ and ‘macs’ of conservative traditions. But what could an authentic, modern Scotch whisky look like in 2014?

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Tone of Voice The tone of voice of the brand and packaging will be short informative body copy and have a modern style and aesthetic.

As a packaging brief, this will challenge and improve my skills as packaging isn’t something I tend to work within. It is also a subject area which I aren’t familiar with, so research will be essential.

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Concept Research 1. Malting In the first step of the process, the barley is soaked in water and then dried by heating in a kiln. This is known as malting and is designed to make the barley release the starches it contains, but not fully germinate. Think of it like getting a sweet out of its wrapper.

This stage has a great contribution to flavour. In many cases, peat is burned as part of the drying process, which gives a unique smoky flavour to the whisky.

2. Mashing The malted grain is milled and the resultant coarse flour, or grist, is mixed with hot water in the mash tun, causing the starch in the grains to convert to sugars.

The sugary liquid, known as wort (a little like barley water), is then drained off through the sieve-like floor of the mash tun.

The first distillation happens in the larger wash still, where the wash is gradually heated until the alcohol turns to vapour. A condenser transforms that vapour into a liquid known as low wines with an alcoholic strength of around 20%.

5. Maturation The final part of the process is to transfer the newmake spirit into oak casks.

3. Fermentation The wort is cooled and transferred into washbacks .

It’s here that yeast is added and fermentation starts.

The yeast converts the sugar in the wort into alcohol.

After two to four days, fermentation is complete, leaving a liquid called wash that it a little like a strong beer at 8 to 9% volume alcohol. The length of fermentation time has an important effect on the overall flavour of the spirit.

Casks are either American oak, which previously held bourbon or European oak, which previously held sherry. The choice of American or European oak casks provides different colours & flavours.

Scotch whisky is typically distilled twice in copper stills. You might think of the still as a big kettle with a fire underneath it.

The size, shape and number of stills have a big influence on the taste of the whisky, due to the spirit’s interaction with the copper. Generally, the more the spirit interacts with the copper in the still, the lighter the spirit.

Our stills here at Glenkinchie are a good example.

We use large, fat stills that are among the largest in the industry and deliver considerable interaction between the spirit and the copper. It’s the size and shape of these stills that helps create the lightness of Glenkinchie Single Malt Scotch Whisky.

Nathan Bolton

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The low wines are heated again in a spirit still, which is a smaller version of the wash still. It vaporises and condenses again and the liquid, now at around 68% alcohol, flows through into the spirit safe. Here, the distillers use their skills and experience to select only the pure, middle cut of the spirit that is produced, in doing so, ensuring that the high quality of our whisky is maintained.

The maturation is crucial in influencing the final character of a Single Malt Scotch Whisky. The oak casks remove some of the harsher tastes of the new make spirit and, at the same time, expose the spirit to a variety of flavours and aromas derived from the interaction with the wood.

4. Distillation After fermentation, the wash arrives in the still room, ready for distillation.

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European oak tends to produce sweet & fruity notes and a darker coloured spirit.

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American oak tends to produce sweet vanilla notes, coconut notes and a lighter colour After three years in the cask, the spirit is legally allowed to be called Scotch whisky. However, for the Classic Malts, we demand much longer than this to produce the Single Malt whiskies that truly embody the locations out of which they are borne.

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Visual Research After researching into existing brands that are seen everyday within the shops and supermarkets, I wanted to look at brands which took a better design approach to the branding and packaging. I felt that the commercial brands are all very similar and lack an element of ‘nice’ design as its all done for mass production.

With a target audience of late 20’s and the purpose of creating a new 21st century based whisky, the design needs to be different to the normal whisky brands and be one which stands out on the shelf. Taking inspiration from the modern 21st century lifestyle we live in, these brands take a much more modern design aesthetic and would be more of the style to design to for the target audience. I feel that this packaging displayed here would intice the audience compared to the brands and packaging on the existing shelves.

Nathan Bolton

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Development Initially sketches for ideas of the bottle labels and packaging design were drawn out on paper, giving room to pick and choose sertain elements from the range of ideas, in order to finalise an initial design that can be further developed digitally.

The simple sketches give indications of how the artowork of the packaging products, could be built up to create the design for the products.

Nathan Bolton

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Development Taking idea from initial sketches, elements of the brand and packaging design were designed digitally to get a feel for the aesthetical value of the products to be made.

These three designed elements are the ones which will be common across all the products created in the product range.

Single Malt Whisky

Nathan Bolton

43 ABV

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Branding / Brand Specimen Creating a brand specimen for the branding and identity, collates all the elements of the brand together in one place. With it all together in one product it makes it easier to undertand the brand and see the different elements that make up the identity.

The brand specimen is created as a folded leaflet, the reasoning for this is that as you unfold the product, more of the brand is revealed. The specimen is therefore displayed in a certain order so it runs in linear timeline to show how the brand is built up to create the final element.

Brand Guidelines

Logo

Colour Palette

Product Types Icons

100% Green

80% Green

60% Green

40% Green

100% Orange

80% Orange

60% Orange

40% Orange

100% Yellow

80% Yellow

60% Yellow

40% Yellow

Source Sans Black

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

The Making Process

Source Sans Regular

Aa

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Source Sans Light

Aa

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0

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Application

The deep amber gold liquid has a dry peaty palate with a gentle but

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strong sweetness, followed by sea and salt with touches of wood.

Single Malt Whisky

43 ABV

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Bottle Label Design The bottle label design brings all the elements of the branding and identity together to create the design of the label. It is focussed on the concept of using the making process as the main aesthetic and visual element of the design.

The label has been designed as a continuous label - it will be one label that sticks around the bottle, this is to make production of the labels easier and this looks more professional on the bottle.

The label is split into three sections using a single stroked line. This is to break down the information on the label, which the eye sees the three sections and makes it easier for the user to identify the information and read it.

The use of the making process has been used on each label, this highlights how each product is made and how they differ from each other.

The solid colour indicates which section of the process is different.

On the opposite side the whisky description is short but informative and gives a brief overview of what the user can expect from the taste of the whisky.

Nathan Bolton

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Packaging The packaging takes a rectangular format and forms a cuboid when in its 3D form. This is a simple net for the packaging, but this means that it can be stacked and placed on shelves within shops and supermakets much easier and makes it easier to be displayed.

The front panel of the packaging opens to access the product inside, this is the unique element to the packaging as normally you would find it opening at the top. This takes the form of a more traditional wooden cask case, which would slide open from the front panel.

The packaging carries the product branding and identity through the design, using the making process illustration as the main focal point of the design. Each package is colour co-ordinated to the colour of the label on each product. This gives each individual product its own identity and makes it easier to identify the products.

With a description on the back of the packaging it finishes off the design and makes it a commercial standard packaging product.

Nathan Bolton

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Information Leaflet As the whisky is a new product and the branding takes on a informative and infographic style with the making process illustration; a information leaflet has been designed and created to fit within the packaging. This slots into a sleeve on the back of the opening panel.

The inforamtion leaflet explains the brand and the individual product. Also included is information on the making process, this explains how the whisky product is created, along with the illustration as a visual aid. This will hopefully inform the user of the making process and make them understand the art of whisky.

The design of the leaflet is set to A3 format and folds down to make a rectangular format which fits into the packaging. The layout of the leaflet is kept simple because of this thin format and small content area. The branding and identity has been used throughout the product and works on the individual colour scheme of each of the products.

Nathan Bolton

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Products In Situ Photographing the products together was a big focus for this project, as with a packaging brief, it is hard to show the design any other way.

For the photography of the products I wanted to put the products within context, so filling the bottles with liquid and using a glass with whisky in made the photoshoot work much better and the final imagery of the products now relates to the brief because you can see them in context.

Photographing on a white background was decided to fit with the modern and stylish aesthetic of the brand and products.

Nathan Bolton

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