WorkPassion project

Hops, Heart and Hues

Rebel Brewing — Twinkle Toes Hazy IPA

Building an inclusive craft-beer brand, from first sticky note to six-pack.

A personal concept project: Rebel Brewing is a brand I invented, not a real brewery.

The Rebel Brewing mark, a winged hop flower in a full rainbow gradient, with the wordmark beneath on charcoal.
Mission
Craft beer is full of brands that look like they’re for the same few people. Rebel Brewing set out to be for everyone else: playful, unbound and openly inclusive, starting with its first beer, Twinkle Toes Hazy IPA.
Outcome
A complete identity, from a winged-hop mark, a type system and a brand personality to a can and six-pack carrier fronted by a cast of characters, plus the dielines to print them.
Impact
A brand with a clear point of view, where every touchpoint says “we see you” and the can is art you can sip from.

Services

  • Brand Strategy
  • Logo & Identity
  • Art Direction
  • Packaging

Strategy

Winning Hearts & Minds

Rebel Brewing started as a personal project in a crowded category. I wanted a brand that felt unique, playful and slightly rebellious, for the not-so-average beer drinker looking for something different.

The audience was clear: unconventional, fun-loving people who appreciate a well-made brew but don’t take themselves too seriously. People who embrace their inner rebel and care about inclusivity. The brand had to stand out on a shelf and feel like a welcome sign.

Brainstorm wall of yellow sticky notes over a photo of two friends laughing, with the words creative, fun, true, unbound and inclusive.

Brainstorm: quantity first, everything on a sticky.

Research

Someone Who Wants to Be Known

First I needed to understand the market and the people in it. I worked through demographics, psychographics and trends to build a profile of the ideal drinker: someone who wants a beer as bold in spirit as it is in taste, isn’t your average beer drinker, and wants to be known.

Research board: brand concept map, audience profile and persona notes over the rainbow mark.

The Mark

A Mark Is Born

All good logos start with pencil. Each sketch got closer to the heart of Rebel Brewing, until the hop and the wings took flight together: boldness, with a wink to a certain rebel alliance. A construction grid then tightened the mark into something that holds up from a bottle cap to a billboard.

Sketchbook spread of pencil logo explorations: wings, hop cones and shields.
Logo construction: the wing-commander emblem plus a hop flower combine into the final mark on a grid.
The mark and wordmark on light and dark grounds.

Process

Dressing the Brew

With the mark locked, I explored the look of the flagship can through stylescapes: boards that map a whole visual world, from type and texture to color and attitude. Two directions went head to head. “Monsters” was bright, inclusive and fun. “Rebel Pirate” was darker and punkier. The first won. It matched the brand personality we’d defined: creative over status quo, inclusive over exclusive, fun over expected, unbound over rule-following.

Stylescape .Fb1, Monsters: hot pink, rainbow type, friendly monster characters and joyful photography.
Stylescape .Fb2, Rebel Pirate: black, red and white, skulls, punk textures.

Two worlds. Monsters won.

Final Direction: the Monsters stylescape above brand-personality sliders: status quo to creative, exclusive to inclusive, expected to fun, rule followers to unbound, conforming to rebel culture, conservative to liberal, flanked by two monster characters.

Final direction: the brand personality, dialed in.

The Outcome

Crafting a Can with Character

With a clear direction set, I wrapped the beer in packaging as fun and unapologetic as the flavor. The goal was to be accessible, creative and unconventional for craft beer: art you can sip from. Twinkle Toes, a fuzzy teal monster with rainbow socks and a star wand, fronts the can. A whole cast of characters joins him on the carrier, each as individual as the people picking them off the shelf.

Twinkle Toes Hazy IPA can on bright orange, the teal monster mascot beside it.
Flat can label: Rebel Brewing mark, Twinkle Toes character, story copy and HAZY IPA lettering.
Six-pack carrier on red with an illustrated rainbow skyline of characters.
Six-pack carrier and cans on white.
Rows of Twinkle Toes cans on a diagonal.
3D render of the rainbow mark on a dark textured ground, "we see you".
Flat dieline of the six-pack carrier with the full character illustration.
330ml can dieline.

Production: carrier and can dielines.

In the Wild

Meet the Newest Member of the Family

To see the brand where it would actually live, I staged it in lifestyle ads: bars, patios and friends sharing a can, all in the brand’s warm, welcoming voice.

Ad mockup in a moody bar: "Meet the newest member of the family", a Twinkle Toes can on the counter.
Ad mockup: two friends laughing at a bar with Rebel cans.
Ad mockup: two men laughing on a patio with beers.
Ad mockup: two women toasting with a pint and a can.

Lifestyle ad concepts.

Let’s talk.

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