-
Bridging the gap between people with learning disabilities and job opportunities through great beer!
-
How do they make a difference?
Where do we start? This deeply personal venture started at the heart of a family. With a daughter with a learning disability, Simon Rundle was concerned for her future employment prospects. Simon took his personal interest in brewing beer and turned it into a social enterprise that trains and employs people who would otherwise struggle to find opportunities for career development. Their delicious range of beers and lively tap room are winning hearts of beer enthusiasts and local passers by alike.
-
What we did?
The previous branding struggled on a few counts. Firstly, it didn’t communicate the brand’s purpose strongly enough – making it just a local beer, rather than a true reflection of all they are doing for the community. Secondly, each bottle looked quite similar, with a white background, black block, and small coloured illustration. More clarity and differentiation was needed between the range – both for their customers and for their own team.
-
We reimagined the packaging using a visual representation of what they existed to achieve. With people living with learning disabilities on one side, and job opportunities on the other, the gap between them was represented with a large letter I. The original arched logotype was redrawn and became the bridge that linked the two sides.
The I became the colour differentiator between the range of beers, and gave a fabulous and memorable brand symbol. We designed a strap-line motif combining a hop shape with sparks to represent positivity and impact and put the line ‘Great Beer, Changing Lives’ prominently on the front of the bottles.
-
With finite colours available, we developed a simple solution to reduce how many we need to pick. For the core range, each label is black with a coloured ‘I’. For seasonal beers, of which they expect to release four, the label is white, with a new colour. And for any possible collaborations in the future, the ‘I’ will be black and the background will be a colour. This is intended to enable distinction between each beer, even if a colour is quite similar to another in one of the ranges.
-
How did this make a difference?
The first sign of success came during the build of Ivybridge Brewing Co’s new website. Despite not having launched the site yet, a visitor stumbled across placeholder images that showed the new designs while in progress, and immediately contacted Simon to request to stock the beers in their farm shop. When told the new labels wouldn’t be available for two months, the prospective client decided they were happy to wait until the new branding was in place!
While this was a lovely happy accident, the real results lie in the engagement of the brewery’s team and the excitement about being part of a growing enterprise. Their story is now being told, and the company is set to receive a huge boost in engagement with a great story to tell in the most professional way.
-
The brewery’s website needed redesigning simply in Squarespace to tell their story, showcase the people and facilitate ordering the beer for delivery. Adopting the new brand look and feel and adding relevant content went a long way, and all the analytics showed improvement in reach and performance.
Bounce rate went from 88% to 46%, and monthly views increased nearly 60%.
Visit the new site and order their beers here!
“We really valued Upshot’s personalised approach to our rebranding exercise. They way that Owen and his team engaged with us at an early stage to find out our core values and purpose meant that we felt that we were in safe hands when it came to the process of putting together our new brand design.
The whole exercise was very collaborative and we felt that, as well as coming up with innovative ideas, Upshot were very receptive to our suggestions and did an amazing job at bringing everything together. The end result was a new brand identity that will enable us to take our business to the next level.”
Simon Rundle, Founder, Ivybridge Brewing Co.
