Hasta La Ideas

A new craft beer company launching in Glasgow later this year has commissioned Glasgow School of Art alumni to create illustrations for use on bottles and packaging.

Drygate is a partnership between C&C Group, which owns lager brand Tennent’s, and Scottish craft brewery Williams Bros. The brewery is due to open in the city’s East End in May.

Local agency D8 is designing the company’s identity, and asked GSA students and graduates to create a series of illustrations that could be used to promote the company’s initial range of beers.

Alumni were asked to draw on the beers’ flavours and the company’s heritage when creating their designs. 15 designs were shortlisted from those submitted and displayed at a one-day event at Glasgow Print Studio.

Featured work included illustrations by Jack Bedford and Linda Sweenie (top); Emma Houlston:

Information designer Andrew Park:

Illustrator Paul Ryding:

And a series by Patch Keyes and Good Press bookshop founders Matthew Walkerdine and Jessica Higgins:

Visitors were also invited to sample Drygate’s beer and take a look at plans for the brewery’s new site. The company plans to launch a restaurant and visitor’s centre, where people will be able to try making their own craft beer.

“The brand is all about brewing exceptional beer and breaking down the barriers to craft beer making it more accessible to everyone,” explains D8 creative director Adrian Carroll.

Drygate’s identity is still a work in progress but D8 has already released a distinctive logo for the brand. The marque features a zig zag line, which represents the seven peaks in the building’s roof and the German/Nordic translation of Drygate.

“In essence, it means “priest’s path”. One of the things that Drygate mentioned at the beginning of this project was taking people on a journey from the everyday to the exceptional, so the line also represents this journey, which isn’t a straightforward one,” adds Carroll.

Slight tweaks in the Drygate headline font also provide a nod to its location: the crossbar in the ‘A’ represents a walkway that will lead from a roof garden into the main building, explains Carroll. The building’s signage will feature the same logotype, with each letter standing around a metre high.

We’ve yet to see how the illustrations will work in situ but GSA’s alumni have produced some fun and intriguing designs. Three  will be selected from the shortlist to appear on the initial range of products, but Carroll says all of the artists’ work will be used by the brewery in some way.