Marigold Brewing
Marigold Brewing
Blending Heritage with Craft
September 2024
Marigold Brewing is a craft brewery that celebrates the intersection of Mexican heritage and modern craft beer culture. The brand needed an identity that would stand out in the competitive craft beer market while honoring the cultural symbolism of Día de los Muertos.
SERVICES
Brand Identity, Packaging Design, Art Direction
Project Overview
Create a bold craft beer identity that stands out on shelf, tells a clear story at a glance, and celebrates marigold and Día de los Muertos influences. Establish a cohesive system of logo, color, illustration, and typography that can flex across multiple flavors, seasonal releases, and digital touchpoints. Develop packaging and brand assets that feel production-ready and adaptable for future campaigns and merchandise.
Marigold Brewing is a self-initiated brand identity and packaging system for a fictional Mexican-inspired craft brewery, designed to blend vibrant florals, skull iconography, and bold typography into a cohesive, shelf-ready presence.
This project started as a way to explore how illustration and brand systems can give a fictional brewery a strong, ownable voice. I defined the brand story around celebration, remembrance, and bold nights out, then translated that into a logo, skull-and-floral icon set, color palette, and can architecture for multiple SKUs. From there I extended the system into packaging mockups, social media assets, and hero imagery, focusing on consistency, shelf impact, and real-world production constraints.
Approach
Brand identity and can design exploration
I approached Marigold Brewing as a full brand system, starting with strategy before visuals. I defined the brand personality as bold, celebratory, and rooted in Mexican cultural references, then built moodboards around marigold florals, sugar skulls, and punchy typography. From there I explored multiple logo marks and can architectures, testing how color, illustration, and type could stay consistent across flavors while giving each SKU its own attitude.
The process began with competitive shelf research to understand how other craft beers use color, iconography, and hierarchy. I moved into thumbnail can layouts and skull-and-flower sketching, then refined the primary mark, wordmark, and icon set in vector. Once the core system was locked, I built full can wraps, 4-pack and case mockups, and social assets, continually checking contrast, legibility, and hierarchy so the brand reads clearly both in-store and on screen.
Process
The process moved from brand discovery and visual research into iterative sketching, digital refinement, and packaging mockups, ensuring every touchpoint reinforced Marigold Brewing’s bold, celebratory story.
The project began with a discovery phase to define Marigold Brewing’s story, target audience, and position on the crowded craft beer shelf. I built moodboards around marigolds, skull iconography, and Mexican-inspired patterns, then explored logo concepts, can layouts, and type pairings through rapid sketches. From there, I refined the strongest directions in vector, testing color, hierarchy, and legibility across multiple SKUs and formats. Finally, I applied the system to full can wraps, 4-pack and case packaging, and social assets, creating production-ready mockups that present the brand as if it were ready to launch tomorrow.
The design philosophy balances bold storytelling with practical shelf impact. Marigold Brewing leans into vibrant marigold florals, skull iconography, and high-contrast color to feel instantly celebratory and unmistakably Mexican-inspired, while a clear type hierarchy and simplified can architecture keep the information easy to scan at a distance. Every element—logo, illustration, palette, and layout—is built as a flexible system, so the brand can support multiple flavors, seasonal drops, and digital applications without losing recognition or clarity.
Final Design
The final Marigold Brewing system delivers bold, shelf-ready cans, packaging, and social assets that fuse vibrant marigold florals and skull iconography with clear hierarchy and flexible layouts for future flavors and campaigns.
The final designs present Marigold Brewing as a confident, celebratory craft brand with a cohesive visual system across every touchpoint. Each can uses a consistent skull-and-floral illustration style, a strong wordmark, and a structured information layout so flavors are easy to distinguish while still feeling like part of the same family. Supporting assets—4-pack and case packaging, social posts, and hero mockups—extend the identity without diluting it, showing how the brand can live on shelf, online, and in future seasonal releases.
Product Images
