United Craft Beverages

United Craft Beverages (UCB), based in Kent, is a new craft beverage business and parent company to a series of growing beverage brands. They needed a visual identity to represent and showcase their portfolio of products, including existing beer brands McCanns and Angels & Demons.

As the corporate sales entity of the business, this needed to look professional whilst reflecting the craft values of their operation including a new logo, typography style and colour palette.

After exploring a series of visual design concepts, including both corporate and craft-driven angles, together with ideas that represent 'united' and 'craft', we landed on an outcome that equally balances these attributes. A brand symbol was defined for UCB using a single shape for the three letters, uniting them visually. The curved shape represents the liquid theme of the business together with references to brewing equipment and drinking vessels. Additionally, we applied the use of a rough surface texture to highlight the hand-crafted aspect of the business, together with visual imagery to bring this idea to life.

Subsequently we were also commissioned to refresh the existing McCanns beer brand, under the umbrella of UCB. We created a new and modernised version of the logo, inspired by a historic McCanns Irish family crest, which includes a boar motif. We redrew the original boar, paired it with new typefaces and introduced alternative logo formats for different application uses. Versions of the new logo included a 'Hop House & Kitchen' outcome for their new taproom, located on the companies hop farm source in Tenterden. We developed ways to utilise the logo on glasses, beer bottles, kegs and beer taps as well as other marketing materials and merchandise.

These contemporary craft beverage brands now have distinctive visual identities that capture the vision and portfolio of products for the business. Whilst in its early inception stage we are thrilled to have been involved in this key phase of the business, helping to define the overall personality and brand approach.

We look forward to seeing what the future holds for United Craft Beverages and how we can continue to support with creative and marketing.