Making Sure
When this project began, John and Steve had shared a tonne of old Reggae, Dancehall and Calypso album covers as a starting point for the aesthetic they were after. Alongside references of retro record label logos, vintage gig posters and comic books, I knew I was going to have lot of fun developing the Sure brand – particularly with bold colours, funky typography and the use of texture.
With the logo Steve and John were pretty adamant that the primary icon should be an ‘S’ in a circle, like this – Ⓢ. However, I wasn’t convinced, so I explored a silly amount of alternatives, some a little too heavily inspired by those I was referencing. If felt like there was a point where some of them veering into the realm of plagiarism, rather than pastiche or parody.
Admittedly, there’s a few of those abandoned logos that I’m pretty fond of (watch this space, I’ll be adding them soon), but in all the label exploration, there was something about the simplicity of the Ⓢ that worked, so we developed that, and the rest of the brand followed.
Red, Yellow and Green
Building on the record label inspired logo, the previously mentioned Reggae album covers were the foundation for exploring the beer label artwork that would form Sure’s launch line-up. The use of those reds, yellows and yellows formed an unofficial starting point for the Sure brand colours. In application, this inspiration is pretty evident in the 100% and 200% Dynamight label artwork, and also crept into the website design.
The use of colour (and imagery) for each label is also meant to be complimentary to the style of the beer in the can, as well as the accompanying playlist (accessed via a QR code on the can). So, with a big and bold double IPA, like 200% Dynamight, the playlist was equally big and bold, full of classic Reggae, Ska, and Funk – that wouldn’t be out of place blasting through a Notting Hill Carnival sound system.
Vinyl Revival
From the label through to social media, showcasing the artwork in all its vinyl-inspired glory is one of my favourite aspects of the Sure branding. In particular, the little details, such as those faux pricing stickers used on the collaboration releases, that are a little hit of nostalgia – especially for those of us that grew up with physical media.
In a market where there’s a lot of competition, pairing bright and bold artwork with a simple (yet classic) logo, has helped Sure to establish an identity that’s consistent and flexible.
