Frik&S
Branding
Client: Kamenitza
Frik&S is a brand of bulgarian craft beer, brewed in Plovdiv’s old beer factory of Kamenitza. Inspired by the company’s Swiss founders – Frik and Sulzer from the late 19th century (during the time of the first Bulgarian breweries) we aimed to reflect a period of complex cultural transitions and capture the zeitgeist of new dreams and hopes (and hops).
Photo & video by Tony Schnitter
Historically, Kamenitza was the first commercial beer in Bulgaria. Its brewing started in 1881 at Plovdiv. With the success of the business, however, the production of the beer was moved to bigger establishments, completely retiring the place. In recent years it was renovated as a beer house. With the competition around, the place stuck out by adopting a more experimental approach of beer-making for an audience of mainly commercial beer drinkers.
With the gradual success, the idea to introduce the beer in the local craft beer market was starting to form, thus needing a powerful brand to tell its story.
Conceptually we aimed for a throwback-with-a-modern-twist type of brand. Both the name (the founders of the Kamenitza company Frik and Sulzer) and the logo are inspired by the 19th century European startup companies. In that way we set the soil for a story that would retell in an alternative way the original one.
During the time of the first Bulgarian breweries the country (right after its liberation) was still undergoing a substantial cultural reform. European culture was seen as something very different and outlandish, but also new and exciting. Like craft beer, it was a time for new opportunities, experiments, and breaking conventions. Raw, wild times in need of taming.
For each beer we created unique and fashionable linocut style characters that reflected both the flavor’s personal trait and its time period. The traditional Pale ale is the traditional Bulgarian shepherd dog, the IPA is the outlandish Danube beaver diver and the Weissbier with spices is the sly fox.
