Knops Brewing is a medium-sized brewery based just outside of Edinburgh, Scotland on the lovely Archerfield Estate as part of their Walled Garden complex.

My brother Robert (Bob) runs the brewery and mentioned that he felt the existing visual identity needed to be revisited.

Two main factors drove this: increasingly it had become clear that the existing visual style was too inflexible and didn't lend itself to the range of brews they were looking to explore. 

Simply put, they're looking to produce more products more often. Exploring more of the existing styles of beer - bringing them up to date, along with producing more experimental brews. They needed a visual style that matched this more flexible approach.

Secondly, the cost to produce the original labels was too high. Something simpler to produce, with a shorter lead time, would greatly improve new product launches.

So, there was the brief - produce an identity that portrayed the company ethos better, and design a label format that can be produced quickly and be adaptable to many different styles.

It’s all too easy at this stage to jump straight into designing a new logo and labels but I was keen to ensure that we at least made an attempt at capturing the ethos of the company - so they didn’t end up with the same disconnect between who they are and what they look like.

First thing first, I wanted to explore the essence of the company - what is it they stand for?

Easier said than done!

Rather than spend days and days agonising over values, personalities, brand wheels and mood boards I had a few informal chats to capture how they felt about the work they do, their customers and any specific pain points they felt with the existing material. 

The outcome of the chats could be distilled into the following key points:

Knowledge and expertise - brewing is a process that involves a huge amount of science and understanding of how different ingredients will behave under varying conditions. It doesn’t matter how creative or experimental you are, without this knowledge and expertise, you’ll simply not be able to execute on those ideas to produce a consistent, quality product. The knowledge and expertise that they have is fundamental to everything they do.

Creating enjoyable beers - ok this is pretty broad and pretty loose. That’s ok because they don’t want to be tied down to a particular style. But it is very important to them that beer is for drinking and enjoying.

Sharing - The more people who know what they do, who understand more about brewing, the better it is for them and the industry as a whole. Sharing their knowledge and expertise is also key to what they do.

These three ideas gave me the basis for creating both the new identity and the label format. On a practical level, we decided that they would still keep using the original labels for existing products and phase in the new style over a period of time.

The new identity comes in two parts - the solo KNOPS and the crest. The solo KNOPS is big and bold whilst the crest hints at the tradition of brewing but in a modern style.

The new label is on a white background - distinctive to many other brands but also representative of the blank canvas they always start with when developing a new product. The layout is very simple with a bold Knops and product name down the side, the style and ABV statement along the bottom and a space for some kind of imagery. This space has intentionally been kept open and should be adaptable to many different styles giving great flexibility when creating new products. The simple format will make it very quick to produce new labels as in theory it will just require a new image.

All in all, I feel that the new look is far more representative of who they are as a brewery. It feels less constricting and has plenty of ways it can evolve as they evolve.

Visit the website at www.knopsbeer.co.uk.