Mac & Jack’s Brewing Company
Mac & Jack’s Branding and Beer Can Design
The Challenge
To say we were honored to help evolve one of the Northwest’s most iconic craft beer brands is an understatement. We were straight-up giddy. For over 25 years, Mac & Jack’s has been quietly producing truly exceptional beer, with a fierce commitment to independence and quality. They’d never been the kind of people to toot their own horns, but with plans to enter the retail market in a big way, it was time to turn the volume up on their story. Our partnership included foundational brand strategy, messaging, a new visual identity, social media marketing and naming and packaging for several all new beers. We also refreshed their website. Whew… after all that we need a beer.
The Outcome
From the beginning, we knew that success meant staying true to who they are—as people and a brand. We wanted to maintain the grit and quiet confidence and make a nod to their history. But we also knew this had to feel like something new. The craft beer aisle is a battleground for consumer attention, and these cans would take no prisoners. The new corporate identity evolved their iconic lion emblem into a retro-cool icon and the package design is visually striking without being gimmicky. The new brand, packaging and marketing began to roll out in Spring 2019, with the launch of their new beers. So far, the only challenge has been keeping it on the shelf. Cheers to that!
Beer brands need flexible identity systems, because their branding has to fit so many form factors. We designed the Mac & Jack’s visual identity to easily flex and adapt to different applications while remaining cohesive and iconic.
The packaging system is designed to clearly identify this as a Mac & Jack’s beer, but also to announce that it’s not the same Mac & Jack’s beer you’ve been drinking on tap for decades. (And to be frickin’ beautiful, of course.)
Every piece of this brand is informed by their story—their PNW roots, their bootstrapped business savvy, their relentless commitment to make beer people love.
Brand Story (short version)
We started Mac & Jack’s out of Jack’s garage in 1993, with nothing but a love of good beer and the dogged certainty that people would recognize quality and originality when they tasted it. Twenty-five years of listening to customers has taught us that the distance between a good beer and a truly compelling beer is subtle, but it’s a hard-fought inch, and people recognize the difference. Our industry has changed a lot since we started, but our mission is simple and fixed: to make something people love, and to make it the right way—not the easy way, and not the way everyone else is making it. You could say we’re stubborn as hell about our beer, and we’d agree—you deserve nothing less.
For the full story—the one that literally reduced our clients to tears (in all the right ways!)—head over to their website.
