Boutique alcohol producer Gardsbrenneriet has combined their products, scientific know-how, local ingredients, and inventive twists on classic cocktails and packaged them into elegant slim cans. Ready-to-drink(RTD) cocktails in a can are a quickly expanding category in the Norwegian alcohol market, therefore no category language has yet to be established for these products in Norway.
These are genuine cocktails, which meant both the product and the consumers had to be taken seriously when we designed the packaging. Clear associations with cocktail bars, which help trigger an immediate response along with a quick understanding of what the product is were important objectives for us. This was especially required with an audience that may not have been exposed to the concept of pre-mixed, high-quality canned cocktails before.
Inspired by Art Deco cocktail bars in Europe, vintage cocktail shakers and old bar menus typed up on a typewriter, we tell the story of these Handverks Cocktails through several layers. Aesthetics from hard liquor stylings and a pinch of Gardsbrenneriets scientific magic(expressed in small illustrations in vintage etching style) help to build their own, new kind of aesthetic and storytelling surrounding Handverks Cocktails.
As a brand icon we have embodied the ethos around Handverks Cocktails with our acrobatic, sophisticated, old school bartender character. With such high-end bartending skills he can mix and deliver cocktails in any position, no matter the situation. The fluted glasses he carries in precarious positions helps with consumer communication, whilst providing an implicit recommendation for serving glasses for each cocktail flavour.
By combining the aforementioned elements with soft, modern, slightly feminine colors, we have created a product design at the intersection of tradition and modernity.
