Beer by Design
The Art of Good Beer Branding
by Pete Brown
About The Book
Ask any beer lover why they choose the beers they drink, and they’ll tell you it’s all about the taste. That may be true, but you need to see a beer and order it before you can find out what it tastes like.
In this lavishly illustrated book, acclaimed beer writer Pete Brown traces the history of beer label design back to the UK’s first-ever trade mark and beyond. He explores the conventions of successful beer design (and how they are now being shattered) and explains the tricks and secrets of successful design in a compelling and highly readable narrative.
While the book majors on beautifully crafted beer designs, it also tells the story of beer design, labelling and packaging from when it really took off as a discipline in the late nineteenth century until the present day.
In Great Britain, the trademark registration act was passed in 1875. Formally from the next year, the British Patent Office began work and the first trademark was registered by the Bass company.
More recently, one of the main sources of craft beer’s appeal is that people working in open-plan offices and pointless, soul-destroying jobs can live vicariously through the achievements of others.
Pete Brown talks about some of the reasons behind writing Beer by Design and explores some of the themes and ideas within the book.
This video was recorded for IMBIBE magazine and more details can be found here; https://imbibe.com/authors/pete-brown/
What’s inside?
1 A Quick History of Beer Branding
2 How Branding Works
3 Brand Architecture
4 Lettering and Typography
5 Logos and Names
6 Visual Identity
7 Beneath the Label
8 Beyond the Label
9 The Beer Design Hall of Fame
Introduction
Does anyone still say ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover?’ Because everyone does that, really, and I’m not sure why we were ever advised not to. How else do you get from walking into a shop that stocks 45,000 titles, to browsing a handful, picking a few up, and hopefully taking one or two of them to the till? Book covers are carefully designed to convey the type of book contained within, to follow category norms that say ‘This is a thriller’, or
‘This is a romance’. If you’re reading this after being attracted to the cover in a bookshop and picking it up, thank you.
I guess some aspect of the cover design worked here too. I’ve never heard anyone say ‘Don’t judge a record by its sleeve’. I have records in my collection that I bought entirely because of the sleeve design, having never heard the songs contained within. There were cues and clues in the artwork, or the lettering. Maybe I recognised the designer and knew the kinds of bands they worked with? Or maybe I just intuited the style of music because
I already have loads of records in a genre I love and which have similar typefaces or artwork. Think about the last time you were in a shop or supermarket, and you picked up a brand you’d neither seen nor heard of before. What was it that stood out? What was it that suggested – probably in a fraction of a second – that this might be something that was right for you?
Chapters
Pages
Beer brands
About the author.
of beer writing and extend the public knowledge of beer.” If you write, tweet, gram, podcast or take photos about beer and pubs, and you like to socialise with and learn from others who do, find out more here.
Cheers!
Pete Brown