The Rebirth of Australia's First Craft Brewery
Role
Brand Positioning
Brand Identity
Brand Packaging
Launch Materials
Venue & Signage Design
Photography/Art Direction
Understand / analyse
When Matilda Bay launched, way back in 1983, shoulder pads were at their biggest and beer was at its blandest. From their original brewery in Fremantle, they showed Australia how perfectly balanced, complex and full of flavour beer could be.
Today, the pendulum has swung the other way and brewers compete to push the boundaries of beer, forsaking flavour for fads. Matilda Bay’s experience has taught them the best way forward is to go back to basics. Reuniting with founder Phil Sexton, Matilda Bay is here to brew beautiful beer, simply and skilfully using organic ingredients where they can and employing the best environmental practices.
Position
While the Australian beer market has changed around them, Matilda Bay’s position as one of the first pioneers of craft remains. Backed by more than 35 years of brewing experience, they are going back to their roots, brewing beautiful beer with naturally amazing flavour.
Brand Promise
Inspire natural harmony through beautiful beer
Ideate
Ideating with dual objectives – we created a new coherent visual language for Matilda Bay and developed a new sub brand that communicated the new brand promise.
To do this we created a design system which allowed for multiple new brands to be created whilst reinforcing the Masterbrand. This was to be a hybrid of branded house and house of brands, allowing for different expressions of the sub brands.
PLAN / Implement
Along with modernising the visual identity of some of their classic award-winning brews, such as Red Back, Dogbolter and Alpha Pale Ale, we developed a new visual identity for their Original Ale. Inspired by the natural beauty of the Yarra Valley and the wisdom of over 35 years experience, we created a distinctive identity signalling Australia’s original craft brewery was back.