Applying "Whiskey Elements" logo across brand collateral

Applying "Whiskey Elements" logo across brand collateral 

Physical application of logos & why
I carried out an extension of the brief and placed my logos onto some physical items relevant to the whiskey industry and that could be used within the brand collateral of "Whiskey Elements" products. This is also a reaction & adaptation to some points I made in my evaluation & brand proposal, I mentioned I wanted to create physical outcomes using the logo to create collateral for the brand image. 

The logo system was applied over a few different items to show how versatile its application could be, applying it on stamps, business cards and whiskey stone bag was the successful physical outcomes. The stock choice on the business card was influenced by wood (brown) and the cream was influenced by classic top shelf whiskey branding. The idea of the product was to make low end whiskey taste like top shelf whiskey so this influence is relevant to the product. 

The use of bronze edging on the business card adds a touch of class and luxury to the brands image, something again relevant to the enhancement concept of the business. 

The stamps came in two sizes, a 5.5cm radios and a 4cm radius so the stamp could be applied across future collateral, the initial logo was influenced by Portland Organs historic stamp/seal. So applying this logo to a traditional stamp seemed quite relevant to giving the modern logo a feeling of traditionality and heritage. Something that was the focus of the logo throughout the development. 

Outcomes that actually worked!
In the end the only successful outcomes I ended up with where the business cards, the initial plan was to:
Laser cut the logo into a bottle
Create a stamp to stamp up the whiskey stone bag and business card.
Laser cut into the whiskey stones.
But numerous problems came up!

Development & production.

Setting up a simple business card set up, its a shame I didn't have time to develop a more thought out range of stationary and brand collateral but Im happy with this outcome non the less. 

To keep structure and balance I split the business card up into two halves with a number of horizontal divides which allowed me to position the typography and balance it with the position and spacial allowance of the logo. 

 

I tried out both logos the black and the outline, I prefer the outcome off the outline, its more subtle and balanced where as the black logo seems out of balance in relationship with the Typography. Balance and use of space is important within business cards as type is so small legibility and readability needs to be maintained through lots of fine tuning.
  

This structure was maintained for the typography at the back of the card. Im happy with how this turned out its very balanced and structured within the space. I also added an interactive element for the end user, a competition opportunity for them if they rate the taste of the whiskey element they used. A nice little interaction and pleasant user experience, everyone likes competitions.

 

Played around with some paper stock, I wanted to duplex print the business card so I knew the typography side would be a light stock to maintain readability & legibility through tonal contrast.

The front cover needed to take influence from past whiskey branding, wood, and the idea of traditionally with a modern twist so I settled on an uncoated dark brown stock that took on the ink well and left a subtle visual aesthetic when it came to contrast of tone for the content at the front of the card. I wasn't wanting it to be too loud so this subtly worked perfect. 

I tried out the stamp on a business card without a logo, the idea here was to mix traditional and modern together through traditional and modern print techniques. The bronze adds a touch of class and luxury as mentioned previous, It did fail though when it came to printing the logo. More on the outcome of the logo later.

A happy accident so to speak came about when I pressed the side of the cards to achieve a copper foiling like effect, something that is commonly used in commercial printing to add a touch of class and luxury to brand collateral. So this simulation was a cost effective way at achieving a similar effect although it didn't come out as neat as I would have liked. If this was reproduced commercially copper foiling could be carried out as a print finish although for a starter company like these it may not be cost effective. 

Lots of fails and very little success! 

Measuring up the whiskey stones, 6cm x 6cm.

Applying the logo to the template, again showing the versatility of this logo system allowing unique combinations for each whiskey stone.

Making sure everything was square on the laser bed, I didn't get an after photo but the end result was very disappointing after running the laser over the stones at full power it didn't even scratch the surface, if I was to do this again I would use the CNC machine in the wood workshop. After speaking to the guy down there I see a lot of future potential in this machine. 

I also had trouble with laser cutting the stamp, I couldn't work out how to get the laser to raster (color in an enclosed shape) from my illustrator file so I had to convert it to a JPEG, this resulted in a large quality loss and a very pixelated stamp. The lino material used worked amazing though, It could have done with been lasered twice too as it didn't cut deep enough.  

 

Playing about with reversing out the type for the handle, I prefer the standard version and was happy with how the balsa wood reacted with the laser treatment, for commercial production balsa and lino is quite cheap so making the stamp handle & stamp out of these materials would be cost effective. Laser cutting services however are quite expensive but fortunately the company "Time & Oak" reached more than there allowance on kick-starter wich was to fund a new laser cutting machine so this wouldn't be a problem.

 

Smoothing off the stamp once glued together to get rid of the burn to make it look professionally made.

The ink didn't transfer over onto the fabric very well, I think this is because the stamp ink was made more for general paper use, something acrylic based would have worked better. Screen printing would have been ideal if I managed time better.

I mentioned I wanted to etch into a bottle, well I tried that with the laser machine and something went wrong with the software and it didn't read the lines/paths I input through the illustrator file and just rastered (colored in) the whole bottle leaving a sharp & rough surface. Plan ruined!

Example of how I set my files up in illustrator so I knew what settings to apply later on in the Ethos software.