The 924 Cocktail Co.—Brand and identity, product packaging design and eCommerce
Elevating a client's vision to transform a favourite pastime from a backyard hobby to a premium retail brand.
Project overview
PROJECT
SPECIFICS
Duration:
6 months
Year:
2022
Lead:
Client referral
Budget range:
$15-18k
SERVICES
ENGAGED
Communications
- Instructional
- Internal
- Presentations
- Storytelling
- Tone-of-voice
- Visual
Content
- Animation
- Copywriting
- Management
- Photographic
- Social
- Strategy
- Video
Creative/ strategy
- Analysis
- Art direction
- Auditing
- Campaigns
- Concept
- Ideation
- Marketing
- Naming
- Research
- Storyboarding
- Strategy
Design
- Advertising
- Brand
- Corporate
- Environmental
- Illustration
- Information
- Packaging
- Publication
- Typographic
- Web/ UI
Digital
- Analytics
- Code
- Display
- E-commerce
- EDM
- SEO
- Wireframing
- WordPress
Project management
- Artworking
- Estimating
- Planning
- Print management
- Implementation
- Reporting
- Web Maintenance
PROJECT
MODULES
Master brand
identity
Product
packaging design
Product
imagery
eCommerce
website
OUTPUT AND
DELIVERABLES
- BrandmarkLogo files output in various colour and file formats.
- Product packagingConcept, design, prepress and print management for front, back and neck labels.
- CGI rendersHigh-resolution 3D renders of the individual isolated product and various different in-situ scenes.
- eCommerce websiteContent, design and build in WordPress with functionality including WooCommerce, Store Locator and Events Calendar.
The client
ABOUT
The 924 Cocktail Co. is three Melbourne neighbours who started barrel-aging pre-mixed cocktails as a backyard hobby because they couldn’t find a consistently good source for their favourite alcoholic beverage, the Negroni.
They formed the business in 2016 to selling their single product, the 924 Negroni, batch-mixed to their own perfected recipe and then barrel-aged for two months before filling off into 700ml bottles and distributing via their SquareSpace eCommerce website.
Pictured: Original packaging and brand.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
When people describe your packaging using the exact words you put in the brief, you know your agency has nailed the design. Well done lcdc.co for giving our weekend hobby a look and feel that encapsulates everything we wanted, and sits comfortably alongside long-established heritage brands. We couldn’t be happier.
Milo Parkin
Director—The 924 Cocktail Co.
Background
After selling their pre-mixed, barrel-aged Negroni for five years, the client was interested in increasing sales by submitting the product for consideration by one of the national retailers for the chance to have it ranged in over 250 stores.
A friend had created the original packaging, and while it had served its purpose well, it might not reflect the premium price range in which the product would need to sit to be a commercially viable venture.
Additionally, the client was considering adding other products to their range under the premium banner with the possible creation of a separate, more affordable range to be commercially produced as a consideration for the future.
Ideally, the redesigned packaging of the 924 Negroni would become a template and style guide for line extensions to their premium range. It may influence both the brand and packaging of the commercial range, should they choose to explore its viability.
Challenges
The existing Negroni packaging design suggested the name of the product and the brand to be the same, 924 Negroni. Other than a small line of text on the back label, the overarching master brand (The 924 Cocktail Co.) wasn’t promoted. Without a master brand, new products would need their a separate brand as it wouldn’t make sense and would be confusing to market a product as the 924 Old Fashioned by 924 Negroni.
Solution
We knew of the missing master brand before our discovery session with 924 Co. They shared their background and history at the meeting and discussed the future and how we might assist. We asked to go away to consider this new information and then propose our thoughts on the way forward.
Our proposal was comprehensive, from brand to ongoing support. It was frank and complete in giving the product its best chance in a crowded market.
Budgetary red tape is everywhere, particularly for smaller startups, so we break our major proposals into tasks into modules. This modular format allows some wiggle room in choosing a solution to suit the brand and budget. They selected their modules, and we staggered the work and costs over six months.
MASTER BRAND
The best place to start was at the start. Creating a full identity is optimal, but if not possible, the brandmark (logo) is essential. This task is the backbone of success in 924 Co.’s case, it removed our biggest obstacle, placing an overarching master brand under which all ranges and their products would fall.
We looked at elements from the existing label, and the one that stuck (the 924’ers agreed), was the clock. Their USP is barrel-aged cocktails, it's essential and takes time, so the connection between the brand’s core and their brandmark worked.
Our representation of a clock was abstract and far from literal but there. We created a roundel for its relationship to a clock face, and it prints well on bottle closures, coasters, and so on. The full legal entity ‘The 924 Cocktail Co. is quite long, so we had plenty of characters to run them around a circle, and then to reinforce the company name, we created a symbol of the 924 to remain inside the circle as hours do on a clock face.
924 Co. loved the initial sketches, so we finalised and built out the various alternate executions for secondary application, where a roundel may now be appropriate.
PRODUCT PACKAGING
Art Deco answered several considerations immediately. The creative providers from which we source assets had pages and pages of relevant fonts, graphical stock elements, patterns, palettes, photography and inspiration—it was unlimited.
We retained the core ingredient corners of the original label, scaling them for legibility and the clock as a centrepiece for relevance and to capture a little brand history in the new design.
After combining old with new mandatories, we hand-drew elements to fill voids for a well-balanced design. The 924’ers chose Art Deco with positive first impressions and little feedback, giving us the green light for the back and neck.
924 Co.’s bottle manufacturer uses hand-finishing, which can make a small variance in the liquid level. It is only noticeable with more than one bottle but might look like a quality control issue. We recommended a 360-degree horizontal wrap to block visibility of the fill line.
Incorrect display of government warnings is unforgivable. Those on the original label were not current, and others were absent. Being thorough, we checked, replaced or added new ones and still delivered a beautiful back label.
PRODUCT IMAGERY
You can’t market a premium product without premium photos. Unfortunately, the cost of a decent shoot is horrendous. Once you’ve paid the photographer and their assistant, there’s still the studio, equipment and props before the day is a wrap.
Technology has given us the answer, computer-generated imagery (CGI). Mathematical calculations create data called a 3D model, which is then processed to create an image. The output creates a perfect image, with perfect lighting, perfect reflections, and even perfect imperfections to make it look more lifelike.
For 924 Co.’s product imagery, we chose to work with renders. Investment in the initial model is pricey, but once we have the model, it can be placed into nearly any situation, scene or scenario we require to generate a high-resolution visual.
For the 924 Negroni, we started with the standard straight up and down, front on product shot on white. Then, with two clicks of the mouse, we change the background to black. A couple more clicks, and there was a patterned fabric draped behind.
After this, we asked the 924’ers to choose five stock photographs from online libraries. Then, we purchased them as high-resolution files and rendered the 924 Negroni. As a result, every image on this page depicting the newly repackaged product has come from the same 3D model. In fact, the new 924 Negroni has never been photographed—not by us, anyway.
ECOMMERCE WEBSITE
By removing the navigation from the top of the page and replacing it with a hamburger, we could dedicate the area to the moody image of a bar that would agreeably be a Speakeasy. Unfortunately, no worthy stock images suited the requirement, so we built the header bar visual from a magnitude of others, painstakingly cut together in Photoshop.
A similar tone materialised in all the photographic imagery across the site, with Art Deco embellishments to validate the era.
Today’s website development is plug-and-play, so adding functionality to the site was easy. The eCommerce solution came courtesy of WooCommerce. In addition, the site has two blogs (news and cocktail recipes), a contact form and a mailing list subscription.
Of recent, 924 had been hosting Negroni night. To promote these, they requested functionality that would list their upcoming events. We used Eventbrite for this, and with their proprietary WordPress plugin, events listed via their platform would automatically sync to 924cocktail.co.
Finally, should they be picked up by one of the national retailers, they requested store locator functionality. We achieved this again with a third-party WordPress plugin, and once installed, it simply needed to be skinned in 924’s brand and palette.
At the time of engagement, 924’s website was fine. On Squarespace, it was connected and was taking orders. I would have been easily reskinned in the new master brand and product imagery. Still, they wanted a website that spoke in content and functionality to their shiny new brand and glistening new flagship Negroni.
Their brief requested something that did not follow current web design trends but rather something that set the scene for the product. In conversations, they touched on the prohibition era, which, given its dates, sat alongside the Negroni almost as well as Art Deco; however, less premium in nature.
An infamously cheeky after-hours joint, the Speakeasy conjured visions of raucous fun. Darkly lit rooms and pinstripes billowing with smoke as their sweethearts flapped away to jazz band beats—Negroni most definitely belonged here.
We invested far more time designing the pages on this web project than other functionally modern sites. They also requested the site to be black, which we recommended against, but lost the battle because the Speakeasy was never a daylight event.
Visit the 924 website at
Outcome
The new 924 Negroni launched as The 924 Cocktail Co. found a permanent home in Camberwell, Melbourne. They submitted to one of the national retailers and succeeded in being ranged at Dan Murphy’s.
We greatly appreciated the opportunity to work on this project as a team. It allowed us to think and express ourselves creatively. As a result, the 924 Cocktail Co. remains one of our ongoing clients. We are both happy and proud to support them as they bring new products to the market.
Pictured: 924’s new edition to the family, The 924 Cocktail Minis (single serve).
