client:
caldera brewing
Caldera Brewing Company is an award winning brewery with distribution in the U.S. and over 15 countries abroad. Based in Ashland, Oregon, they were one of the first breweries to market their craft beers in a can, setting a trend that is still growing to this day.12 oz can
hopportunity knocks
For this vector-based beer label, I drew the little hop guys by hand with pencil, then scanned them into Photoshop and cleaned them up, and finally converted to vector and colorized them in Adobe Illustrator. Using direct printing to can, the color palette is limited to six colors, so I had to get creative using overlaid layers with varying opacities to come up with "new" colors.
12 oz can
lawnmower lager
As you can see from the screenshot of the top vector file in Adobe Illustrator, spot colors viewed on a computer screen sometimes appear much different than how they appear in print (in this case the blue is the most obvious). This issue is compounded when printing on a non-white surface such as an aluminum can. However, the final can as shown below is the correct color as desired by the client, achieved through a trial print run by the can company.
12 oz can
ashland amber
Once again we see how different a color can look on-screen vs. how it will look in print. In this case the yellow of the sunset that appears on the Adobe Illustrator file is almost non-existent on the printed can beneath it. This has to do with how spot color inks mix together when printed; normally they don't mix nearly as well as traditional CMYK printing. It is for this reason that most can designs are now done in CMYK and are attached to the can via a sleeve that perfectly fits over the blank can.
22 oz bottle
hop hash
I had a fun time drawing this super stoned swami with his red eyes and his giant ball of hashish. In order to clear approval by the TTB (government agency in charge of all alcohol labels), I suggested to the client that he describe this beer on the bottle as being like a breakfast hash of eggs and potatoes so as to steer them away from thinking the word Hash in the label was a cannabis reference, as that is still not allowed on alcohol labeling as of 2022.
