ROLE:

Brand Refinement Strategy & Design

Identity Design

Label Program Re-Design Strategy & Design

Multiple Core Products Label Design

Illustration

Copywriting & Copy Direction

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

The new look of Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers and their core spirits line.

As the Dillon’s appeal and success continued to grow nationally and internationally, it became increasingly important to refine the brand story and visuals to be relevant to the more geographically diverse yet still craft focused audiences.

Consequently Insite and the Dillon’s team looked closely at the brand’s core to identify what was key to its vision, soul and promise. A thorough brand refinement was undertaken and the result was a strategic review of the packaging line-up starting with the core spirits and new RTD. More to come on the brand refinement.

This first package update boils down what’s most important and sharpens the visuals while keeping the brand’s foundations in place.

Images courtesy of Dillon’s

If you know us, you know we love working closely with clients to consider and design the whole brand through experience. Why? 

Because being able to think with the brand owner from conception and intent, through look and feel, to flow, to interior design and execution, to packaging, the sounds, the light, the communication and even the charm of soccer up on the TV — all goes in to a finished experience that’s cohesive, impactful, enjoyable and from our experience — more successful.

This super fun project covered concept thinking, brand development, identity design, package design, merch design, experience design, interior design, signage & photography direction. Thanks to @ramm for creating the bones of the space and top notch fabrication.

And congrats to owners Cian & Brooke of @oasthousebrewers & @patinapizza — their dedication to doing things right and creating community is inspiring and exemplary.

Pics courtesy of @dispizzapies & shot by: @nataschia & @shedpottery

ROLE:

Brand Strategy & Brand Refinement

Identity Program Design

Strategic Wine Portfolio Consulting

Label Strategy and Design

Label Concept and Illustration

DESCRIPTION:

A few years ago, as part of a larger brand strategy effort for The Grange of PEC, Insite determined that a future estate wine series was essential for The Grange to demonstrate what the winery could achieve with estate fruit as well as a means to communicate the core value and purpose of The Grange to its current and future wine audiences.

And so, when the Grange’s beautiful vineyards were rejuvenated and ready to return to producing exemplary wines exclusively from their site, we set out to create a strategic way to communicate the importance of the estate wines to The Grange and to PEC as a whole.

We identified defendable and differentiating ideas and assets that were the keys to communicating the estate program to the right attentive audience. This started with the place itself and specifically, that The Grange is one of oldest and largest properties in the County, being stewarded by some of the most experienced and respected County wine people.

We used The Grange’s existing naming and vineyard map as the base for the program’s communication. Having walked and biked the vineyards we gained an inspired understanding of the diversity of ecology, drainage and even varied weather so we knew that the map was more than a layout, it was a tapestry of personalities, each with individual character and demands, but all with a set of family traits.

To tell the story of this diversity in place, and starting with packaging, we employed a classic modern art poster metaphor so as to suggest the label was introducing an idea, story, or movie. The art itself is reminiscent of geological maps, graphic landscape paintings or geological features.

The goal was to execute the work in a way that each art piece could easily live off the label as a poster, background in social or feature banner in web — thereby giving The Grange' team flexibility of use and effortless content.

The label layout engages the audience with a full wrap with continuing content and type, compelling the viewer to grab the bottle, turn it on it’s side and rotate it around to the back — the content starts the conversation of terroir detail and diversity as it relates to the map/block language leading to the story of the wine’s personality — with the goal to invite the reader and drinker to get to know the vineyard further, perhaps visit, and answer in more detail how the character of the County, the place and vineyard influences the flavours of the wine.

Concept, Naming, Brand Development, Identity Design, Interior & Experiential Design for @centrogarden 's second location — Centro Noca.

Located in Burlington’s Downtown, the popular and successful Centro Garden needed to expand into a second location that was less than 500 meters up the high street and just north of Caroline Street — the major road that intersects the downtown’s north and south halves.

Insite strategized that the new location should carry the Centro name but utilize an identifier to indicate the difference between stores. Insite is a 30+ year downtown Burlington business and we’re life long downtown residents as well — consequently we’d often joke with downtowny friends that our little downtown Burlington was divided by Caroline Street into NOCA and SOCA — North of Caroline and South of Caroline. Being that Centro would eventually be located in both halves, we pitched the acronyms as the identifier for the store and it stuck.

Further to help differentiate locations, we conceived that the original store would focus on the core passive pursuits of decor and plants that Centro Garden was known for, while the new Centro NOCA could focus on the domestic activities of cooking, entertaining, bartending, cleaning, organizing and celebrating — the verbs or ‘ings”.

From the start of conceptual discussions and planning for the second store, we believed that a food related experiential component was essential to ensure the shop remained entertaining, dynamic and top of mind to the surrounding community. The owner’s love for Italy and his family connection to Italian culture made it natural for this food element to be espresso, gelato and related food stuffs.

Hence Centro Noca Gelato + Café was born. And since the NOCA component would inevitably draw it’s own audience and culture, we gave it a colourful identity that would allow it to venture offsite in the event it expanded or produced food products for customers to take home.

Celebrating 30 Years — Female Founded

So let’s call out our own founder Leslie Akse, who together with Barry Imber, started Insite Design in 1993.

So much can and should be taken for granted for women-owners of business today. Seems ludicrous to think that a woman owning a business should face any more challenge than men — that women should encounter barriers, meet resistance from people, feel any ceilings or be dragging cultural concrete compared to their opposite binary counter parts. But the reality is that in 1993, there was loads of that bullsh*t, especially for a young 20 something woman without the right connections or cash.

There’s not enough room in a post to even scrape the surface of relaying the kind of sexism and resistance from the industry, clients, banking and suppliers that Leslie faced daily — heck even some friends made it tough through passive aggression, lack of support or belief in Insite actually being run by Leslie or being a real role.

But thankfully, things are better and equal today right? Ah, nope.

Sure, vanguards like Leslie and all the women in business before her pushed the needle to a comparably fantastic place today. But still business continues to surprise us in how systemically sexist it remains.

Through all she’s experienced, it’s un-surprising that the majority of our clients today are women-owned businesses and have been for years. Aside from being understanding and empathetic of the female-in-business experience, Leslie believes in what these people are trying to achieve and enjoys the unique perspectives, passions and drive that women bring to their brands.

And with our female clients, they know that in Leslie and the Insite team, that they have an ally — a group of people that truly get what women in business are experiencing and that we trust them, appreciate their sophistication and are inspired by them when so much of the business infrastructure out there still doesn’t support them.

Image courtesy of the talented Nataschia Wielink Photo: https://www.nataschiawielink-commercial.com

ROLE:

Brand & Business Strategy

Brand Development

Identity Design

Label Program Design Strategy & Design

Brand Content Strategy, Creation & Management

Website Development

Strategy and Process for eComm & Email

Copywriting & Copy Direction

Photography & Photo Direction

Audience Development & Management

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

Poised to emerge as one of Canada’s most prominent winemakers, Kelly Mason engaged us to build a new brand and operating wine company from the ground up. 

Because of our extensive knowledge of brand building in the alc/bev vertical, and in particular the wine segment, we had strong strategic ideas on how her new company could operate with a minimum of resources while achieving maximum impact in a relatively short period of time compared to most other new wineries. Our belief is that wineries starting in today’s economic climate, as well as highly competitive landscape, have a short time window to succeed and to grow to keep their audience’s attention and gain foundational market position. Therefore a strategy was conceived that would help Mason Vineyard hustle.

We proposed a brand and business strategy that were sewn together so that all business activities and approaches would speak to and align with the brand itself. This way, the lean manner in which the business would operate would make sense to the audience's perception of the brand and the brand’s goals.

Following the brand development, we created an identity and package program that spoke of the brand’s simplicity, modernity and straight forward honest strength. Mason Vineyard exists only to make exceptional wine — and so the look and feel of the identity needed to convey the same no nonsense message which the audience could connect with and stand behind Mason's simple goal on an emotional level.

Following identity, we created the content strategy and developed content to convey a specific set of stories and key emotional themes that supported the brand and audience’s understanding of the wine and difference in the category. We managed this content in social media as well as developed the website and other communication tools.

In addition to communication, we devised a process of integrated communication and sales tools to streamline the sales and marketing end of the brand – a system that could be easily managed and operated by a skeleton crew — and would support the brand’s assertion that they are in the business of making exceptional wine, not in the business of marketing wine — so a lean sales and communication process to connect with the audience and facilitate sales is necessary and the audience’s agreeable participation in the operation of the system is critical.

The end goal of the brand and its processes is to make it easier for this extraordinary winemaker to make beautiful wine from their incredible terroir for the audience to love — and towards this end the business system needs to reduce the effort to communicate, market and get wine into audience's hands with the ultimate target of selling out all of the wines in the release year, as early as possible, and to eventually pre-sell the wines, further reducing the burden of marketing costs.

Four years in, the outcome of the project has been a great success in many fronts. The brand has been very well received and is perceived as justifiably top tier. Importantly, audience reaction has been above industry norms resulting in a rate of sales well ahead of peer wineries of similar ultra-premium positioning, but which are well in their 10 to 15 year mark. 

The effort to communicate and market the Mason Vineyard wines is substantially less effort than peers as the brand has established a “pull” phase — attracting and building up ideal engaged target audiences — versus the typical beginner “push” phase of searching for audiences and qualifying if they are the right fit. 

Being in the pull phase allows the winery to focus on continuing brand differentiation and fulfilling its promises while expanding its volume without needing to scale up the marketing. This allows the winery to increase volumes to suit the desire and graceful pace of the winemaker / viticulturists as well as to support the maturing profit needs of the winery — versus when wineries are stuck in the pull phase, they need to scale volume as a desperate measure to cover increasing marketing and hospitality activity costs which in turn promote increasing production volumes which often don't make sense to the brand message, winemaker’s abilities or the pace of the vineyard. All which result in lower quality wines, decreased differentiation and ultimately brand derailment.

In the end, this is a long story that supports the idea that great strategy pays — so call us before you dig.

ROLE:

Brand Development

Interior Experience Planning and Interior Design

Fixture Design and Manufacturing Management

Custom in-house fixture construction

Project management of renovation

Images: Bellwether X

From naming and brand development through identity and packaging, the goal in working with Truss Beverage Co., one of Canadas leading cannabis product company’s, was to assist in creating a cannabis beverage brand specifically tailored for the craft beer and beverage segment.

Truss had been working with craft breweries to produce an exceptional non-alcoholic beer that Truss could work with as a base to add their THC and CBD emulsions. We saw that there was a wonderful and unique story to tell surrounding the relationship between the craft brewing and cannabis teams which in most of the cannabis product world are miles apart.

Consequently we imagined a brand that would speak of the collaboration between these two somewhat strange bedfellows — the nerdy craft brewer and the mad cannabis scientist — both who passionately pursue pushing the limits of their liquid arts and who have so much to lend to each other.

We named the brand Bedfellows Liquid Arts to reflect the unlikely and strange bedfellow relationship between the parties.

The package design for @bedfellowsliquidarts needed to do a lot more than what is typical for beverage retail. In this case cannabis beverage is a brave new world and within it, so much of the new product space has to be communicated without words due to Canada’s intensely restricted and regulated retail environment.

A non-alc product collaboratively made by craft beer brewers that cannot legally say beer but which needs to communicate that it’s a beer without alcohol, with added THC and CBD, so that beer lovers will know to pay attention and find it.

Lastly it needed to suggest craft, but craft what? We can’t say beer.

Image courtesy of 13th Street Winery

A new ultra-premium méthode traditionnelle sparkling rosé from The Grange of Prince Edward called Lafontaine du Loup Rosé.

Insite was asked to create the concept, identity and package for this beautiful and serious sparkling wine made by the highly regarded sparkling winemaker Jonas Newman.

The concept derives its name from Lafontaine, the small town in the Georgian Bay Area which remains the last recognized Francophone community in Ontario. Consequently the package pays respect by being primarily in French and French first in hierarchy.

We set out to create an identity that felt like it had been around for generations, giving it a feel of European timeless sophistication and pedigree. And for the heart of the identity, the dancing wolf, we reached into the colourful history and lore of Lafontaine.

The people of Lafontaine hold on to a legend — that of a lone wolf which for years, terrorized them and their livestock.

Lurking through the darkness of separation between old Lafontaine’s cultures — Aboriginal peoples, French settlers, English Loyalists and Voyageurs — the beast was free to exploit their isolation.

Banding together as one community, they banished the Wolf to never return. To this day, the Wolf symbolizes the common respect and connection between the cultures of Lafontaine and is the impetus for their yearly celebration — “Festival du loop”.

We like to think that the wolf of Lafontaine incited solidarity; a cause for celebration and a popping of corks that spirited great friendships — they were “united by bubbles” — “Unitum Bullae”.

Defining a new Product Space

The Dillon’s Prepared Cocktail Series
Package Program

Though Dillon’s has become well known for their authentic, high quality pure spirits, Dillon’s and Insite saw an opportunity in the prepared cocktail segment to tell the same story of authenticity in real ingredients and sense of place.

Together we focused on a number of key goals for the product:

1. Firstly the challenge was in how to present serious cocktails in a fashion that would be flexible to be fun and easy for the beach as well as sharp and sophisticated enough to take to a dinner party.

2. Next, the package needed to speak to the craft and authenticity side of the cocktail and its ingredients, as well as deliver an overt feeling of ritual and timelessness.

3. And finally the package needed to be a program that would allow a series of cocktails within a form that could become a recognizable silhouette for years to come.

Insite first concluded that the market of ready to drink was already saturated with low quality beverages that did not honour or respect the legacy of the classic cocktail and that cocktail drinkers were needing a serious pre-mixed alternative. Consequently we created the more sophisticated category name of “Prepared Cocktail”.

Next the package program was conceived to be in a small single or double serve bottle with crown cap so as to be more classically interactive or ritualistic than the modern screw cap — requiring a tool or tactical method to open the bottle creates anticipation, muscle memory and enjoyment of the sound.

We concluded that there was a big opportunity for Dillon’s to present an authentic sophisticated cocktail in an equally sophisticated package that could be used in casual settings and situations that are typically dominated by practical vessel influenced scenarios — canned beer or wine coolers at the beach. We needed a very sophisticated alternative that was equally easy.

Furthermore the serving size of each unit combined with the 4 pack carrier creates a new social situation — of bringing cocktails to a social gathering or dinner as a gift or BYOB situation. Where typically bringing multiple spirit bottles to make a Negroni would be seen negatively as excessive consumption. Whereas this small serving or cute 4 pack kit is very acceptable and a welcomed gift.

The label needed to be suggestive of the classic era of cocktails while in keeping with Dillon’s brand and contemporary so a simple colour palette was leveraged.

Then a windowed style 4-pack was designed to hold 4 bottles and capture the desire for social sharing and convenience of carry to casual situations.

The result has been incredibly well received by audiences who quite clearly welcomed the alignment of Dillon’s core values to the prepared cocktail. Demand is far exceeding production, selling out within hours to days with each batch release.

For distiller Geoff Dillon, making spirits is a labor of love. And that’s the only way to describe this new 100% Canadian Rye from Geoff, the founder of Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers in Beamsville Ontario.

Years and years and years of planning, investment, hard work, sweat, tears, wins, luck and good people is what is has taken to produce Canada’s first 100% Rye Whisky in decades. Possibly since the 1920’s, US prohibition and other factors of the era created a panic rush boon for Canadian whisky; squeezing the majority rye content out of the world renown product and introducing cheaper more generic ingredients that could be made quicker and more on mass.

This ultra-premium category package design needed to tell the story of how Dillon’s came to make such a new expression of Canadian whisky while also engaging the audience with the concepts of what makes a real rye — rye grain, milling, malting, mashing, distilling in copper and aging in oak — all in Ontario Canada, right down to the Canadian Oak casks among the 3 oaks used.

Insite illustrated the concepts as a full continuous scene around the bottle which was screen printed and baked with ceramic inks. A pressure sensitive front and rear label carries specific release information and bottle numbers as well as cask number and release year to reinforce how special this product actually is.

Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers Cocktail Syrups

Illys: Jordan Riesebosch
Photos: Nataschia Wielink

Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers has grown to become one of the strongest craft spirit brands in Canada. Part of its success was the strategy to produce non-alcoholic products which could be marketed in non-alcohol retail such as style boutiques, specialty grocery or kitchen and entertaining in order to give the brand greater visibility and brand depth with the goal to attract wider audiences. We felt from the start that Dillon’s didn’t have to be a brand isolated to alcohol and that it would need to get outside of Canada’s restrictive alcohol retail in order to be seen.

As part of that strategy we have designed a series of cocktail syrups that complement the core spirit line and support the growing home cocktail and mocktail making market. Made with the kind of honest and primarily local ingredients that Dillon’s is known for, these syrups are sure to become a staple on home bars, travel cocktail kits and cottage coolers.

The vessel chosen was a can, typical of maple syrup, for its ability to open throughout the product life cycle despite sugars crystallizing or gumming up the caps of alternate containers. Also Insite and Dillon’s is very sustainably conscious so a metal container is a highly recyclable choice. The label can be easily removed for separate recycling.

Learn more about our small but mighty team, how we work and what we can do for you and your business. Here.

Image: 13th Street Winery

Brand and Interior Planning and Design

In the world of hospitality, what’s the point or meaning of a room or a space? Or a series of spaces that make up a facility?

The conventional thinking is based on purely practical purposes. Such as with wineries, we need parking. We need greeting. We need a room for retail and tasting the wines. We need dining. We need event spaces. We need wine making and wine cellaring ad so on. Each space is planned so far as puzzle pieces efficiently fitting into a layout to the discretion of the planner and constraints of the lot or existing building.

After that, the spaces are filled with beautiful fixtures, outfitted with tech and point of sale equipment, kitchen and service needs, then decorated to the trend of the day and bam, opened.

What’s not often considered is the point. Or, what do people really want from that room versus what does the facility want from that space? What is the experience that can be enjoyed in the space as it relates to the brand? What stories can be told, what emotions can be elicited, what pleasure or inspiration can be spurred in the direction of the brand so that the guests feel enveloped in the experience, culture and meaning you are projecting?

This is what we ask.

In 2016 we began working with a new winery in Nova Scotia’s breathtaking Annapolis Valley owned and run by a multigenerational family in Wolfville. The winery had already been making waves with their game changing wines and beautiful packaging.

They reached out to us because they felt that they were missing brand. The were approaching the build of their facility as well as ready to roll out a number of new wines, wine club program, and other experiences but they had not undergone the process of brand development. 

The brand isn’t a logo. Brand is the personality, the tone, the purpose and motivation, the emotional value, the soul and everything you do, how you do it and what you say. The logo and identity is simply the visual interface or communication that sets up the promise. In the end, brand is what audiences think of you.

But brand does more than interface with the audience. Brand also constantly informs the brand owner what they are supposed to be doing and in the manner they should do it. Brand is purpose. Brand is approach. Brand is the story that influences the outcomes of the physical.

So for L&W they realized that as they were about to dive deep into the largest project that they had ever endeavoured, that they had no guidance, meaning or purpose that could provide cohesion between all aspects of building design, experiences, future labels and wine releases, events and so on.

The solution was to take a step back and back fill the brand. To look at who the Lightfoot were and what motivated them to carve this path. To dig deep to pull out the soul of what drove them to work so hard every day and to what goal. 

With this understanding we produced a brand guide that could be used to indoctrinate the new to the growing organization as well as keep those inside the brand focused.

Following this we looked at the wine portfolio as it related to the brand as well as the understanding of the audience. We helped reorganize the portfolio into tiers that could in themselves story tell with meaning; coastal or “Tidal” lifestyle, Terroir & Biodynamic and Family among others. Each of the tiers were given part of the story toward the whole. Each tier now has purpose and a clear delineation so that audiences can appreciate the difference and find their own fit within the range.

Next we turned to the facility design. Working with the highly regarded architect Vincent den Hartog, we assisted in creating purpose for all potential audience experiential spaces. Starting with flow and drawing from our retail knowledge, we organized spaces to work best for audience experience and pleasure. Considering what could be adjusted or created to ensure guests could live the winery dream without emotional barriers, red lights and speed bumps that could break their flow and enjoyment.

We then conceived and designed each space to take on the storytelling of the brand and specifically in special rooms, each wine tier was applied as a subtle theme.

The retail room subtly supports the feel of the Nova Scotia coastal vernacular as well as quietly tells the story of the family’s history of emigrating to Canada before the beginning of the formation of the country as well as the patriarch’s life as a barber.

The Tidal Room and lounge envelopes the guests in coastal hospitality and cheerful small village seaside charm.

The Biodynamic Room sets a moody warm atmosphere for learning about the winery’s approaches to terroir, biodynamic viticulture and efforts to preserve the ecology of the area.

And the Cellar confidently supports the importance and strength of family and friends to the Lightfoot’s within a spectacularly impressive celebratory space that can easily expand or contract to provide great breadth or intimacy.

The result after opening is that the experience at Lightfoot & Wolfville is a dreamy endless experience that flows with cohesion from one scene to the next. And through each scene the audience gains a better understanding of the L&W brand story and approach to hospitality as well as a bigger picture sense of what is Nova Scotia.

Lightfoot & Wolfville Web: https://lightfootandwolfville.com

What the heck is a brand experience?

Most interaction we have with brands in our daily lives are in situations and environments full of noise. Perhaps you’re at the alcohol retailer cruising shelves and becoming overwhelmed by all the packages and messages, the crappy lighting, the cheap displays, hurried announcements.

Or maybe you’re thumbing down Instagram’s looky land to check in on what’s new with your favourite brands but are inundated by alternative sponsored brands, reminders of what your more popular friends are doing, or distractions of notifications.

Or sometimes that brand engagement is at an event —alcohol on the table or bar being slung by a non-drinking part time server with aspirations of becoming a nutritionist after they developed rashes from avocado toast.

These interactions and a million others are simply uncontrolled, unpredictable and full of alternate brand voices which drown out your own. The result is a weak interaction that doesn’t clearly communicate who you are and worse, often leaves a bad experience for those looking to engage.

What if you could have all the control? What if you could create an environment that spoke only about you and in the tone, voice and vocabulary that you managed? Without the noise and competition for attention of alternate brands. What if this environment created a feeling that enveloped the essence of who you were? What if every single thing and visual in this environment was considered, part of the plan and purpose and was a solution with the goal of a real return on investment?

If you had this control, what would the music be? How about the lighting? What would the goals of the space be in terms of flow of people? Of the timing of the flow? How long would you want people to stay? What would you want them to do? To experience? To purchase? What would you want these people to tell the world, through instagram or direct to their friends?

How would this place tell the deeper story of you and what your motivations are? How would this space work in your business model? Would you be able to create more products to fill the space that you can’t currently because you don’t have distribution or audience out in the noisy world?

A strategic and well considered space is a brand experience. This isn’t a theme space. Nor is it a space that’s been sprayed with logos like a NASCAR pub. No, this is a space that has distilled the essence of the brand and sensitively sewn together a cohesive idea that the audience can engage within and learn about the culture of the brand. To experience the “real” soul of the brand and it’s people. A place where the people of the brand feel at home in their authentic mother ship which influences how they act.

This is what a brand experience is about and the success of these places or portable situations is why they are becoming the must have for growing and successful brands.

Be that an alcohol brand, a sharp retailer, a fav restaurant or hospitality offering or even a service like dentistry or nutrition — the opportunity is to build an environment that together with your physical product, service and people, completes the big picture of who you are — it fulfils the “whole product” — the "emotional product" becomes clear to everyone who engages leading to deeper relationships with visitors that convert them into loyal contributors to your brand lifestyle which results in greater revenue and positive value to the audience.

So while you review our experience spaces on this site, consider the brand and what must have been planned and executed well to fulfil the goals. And if you are considering a brand experience, give us a shout and we’ll see if we can assist.

Line Extension Brand and Package Program

Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers was founded in 2011 with the lofty goal to bring authenticity and seasonality back to spirits. To allow people to feel a connection to where the spirits were made, what the ingredients were, where these fresh seasonal ingredients were grown and even who the growers were. To this day Dillon’s stays true to their promise of keeping the spirts real — with real ingredients, real people and really well made spirits.

Though Dillon’s had become well known for their pure spirits, Dillon’s and Insite saw an opportunity in the prepared cocktail segment to tell the same story of authenticity in real ingredients and sense of place.

Together we focused on a number of key goals for the product.

Firstly the challenge was in how to present serious cocktails in a fashion that would be flexible to be fun and easy for the beach as well as sharp and sophisticated enough to take to a dinner party.

Next, the package needed to speak to the craft and authenticity side of the cocktail and its ingredients, as well as deliver an overt feeling of ritual and timelessness.

And finally the package needed to be a program that would allow a series of cocktails within a form that could become a recognizable silhouette for years to come.

The result has been incredibly well received by audiences who quite clearly welcomed the alignment of Dillon’s core values to the prepared cocktail. Demand is far exceeding production, selling out within hours to days with each batch release.

Wine concept, strategy, naming and package design for Vineland Estates.

Are you feeling like we are — after being cooped up for months without much soulful in-person connection to our friends — we’re pretty dang excited to get together with the ones we’ve missed the most and to let loose no matter how distanced we need to stay. The anticipation is killing us so much — it’s like a frienzy!

Frienzy — /frenzy/ noun (plural noun: frienzies)

1. a shared state or period of uncontrolled excitement or enthusiastic behaviour when getting together with good friends.

2. an uncontrollable feeling of excitement ahead of a social gathering with people you love.

Yah, that’s how we feel. And so the Frienzy sparkly wine brand was born. A way for people to express how excited they are to see each other, get together, twist off some caps and spray some bubbly.

Let the summer begin.

Introducing a new series of fresh Niagara Country beers by Oast!

A few years ago we started down the path to assist Niagara Oast House Brewers in creating a package for a range of beers that would embody and explore what life in Niagara country was all about. The back roads, farms, hidden places, breathtaking sights, smells, foods, good times and the incredibly warm people — a collection of beers that tell these stories.

This became Oast Offshoot Series.

This beer series is based on Oast’s founder's memories and experiences of their home called Niagara. It’s about growing up there and how it has inspired them. Of the good times and fun that is their home and of all the opportunity Niagara has to offer.

Oast House brand is based on the bucolic farm country life. And so it made sense to base this sub brand’s expression on the nostalgic memories of vintage country wallpapers, fabrics and patterns that dwell in idyllic country experiences.

What we can do for you is relatively unique in the design industry. Not because other design companies don’t do what we do, they just very rarely do all of what we offer in one studio.

Also it’s rare to find an experienced design team that specializes in alcohol throughout our list of services.

The value of all this to you is gaining access to strategic thinking applied across your whole brand, package, communications and experience. As well as a tight, cohesive outcome where everything works together and aligns visually. So we’re kind of a product for your product.

Furthermore, in building just one relationship to tackle all of your needs, you can feel more connected to your project, see better outcomes and experience more success as a brand.

What we do for you:

Brand Strategy & Creation - Product and brand strategy, branding, product fit

Brand Package Design - Visual identity, physical packaging design and execution

Brand Experience Design - Strategy of brand and audience interaction, facility design, events strategy and design

Brand Content Creation - Content strategy, content creation, creative imagery, activities

We’re proud of the work we’ve done with our clients for many reasons but the main take-aways are that our clients have seen brand success at the top of the sales levels in Canada. As well, their audiences have become deeply engaged in their brand’s culture coupled with loyal purchasing of the products.

These are the real measures of success.

Get in touch.

Very early on in this pandemic, when first responders and front line medical and essential services staff were beginning to struggle to get sanitizers, Dillon’s Distillers stopped production of spirits and switched all production to making sanitizer to supply to all these people across Ontario for FREE. At the time of this label we designed, they had delivered or handed out at the distillery almost 30,000 x 750mL bottles.

And they continued to do this moving forward. However this effort was quickly depleting Dillon’s financial and material resources.

You can assist. Dillon’s has released a hand sanitizer that you can purchase. With each purchase, a portion goes towards some costs in continuing to make sanitizers FREE to the front line people out there. Win win. Or as a philanthropic option, you can pay for a bottle to go directly to front line workers.

To order online and have delivered to your door, go to @dillonsdistills profile for a link or go to www.Dillons.ca.

We’re all in this together.

From Napa California, Bandit Wines is the biggest selling tetra packed wine in the US. Recently we were asked to assist in redesigning the iconic brightly coloured series to better align it with its core outdoor adventurous audience.

The series was created to celebrate key state parks across the US. We illustrated the packages in-house using a constrained set of Pantone colours so that the eventual package designs could print accurately on Tetra’s Flexo presses and processes.

Techniques were used within the illustrations to give smooth colour gradients independent of potential press challenges and a PMS background colour allowed the press and brand directors ultimate control over the main pack colour for a strong brand impression.

The result is a very recognizable and memorable series that have worked their way into the hearts of outdoor enthusiasts across the country.

ROLE:

Here&There Collab Series Strategy, Brand and Identity Development

Copywriting

Package Design

Illustration

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Dillon’s Rum Collab

For the first within the Here&There collaboration series, Geoff Dillon travelled multiple times to Cuba to work with the world famous Cuban distillers behind Ron Vigia and the Cuban Institute of Rum — a national treasure for Cuba.

After a year of visits and sharing ideas, Idiana Blanco, ICIDCA’s master blender created these two incredible rums for Dillon’s to share with their audience within the Here&There series.

The two authentic Cuban Rums — 8yr & 18yr represent a historic partnership between Cuba and Canada. Never before has Cuba exported a rum for a partnership and collaboration.

As part of the project and strategy, Insite developed a label program that could work for a series of projects following the rum which is first of many more from around the world. See Here&There strategy below.

The rum specific labels were designed to celebrate Cuba as the primary focus. Cuban colours, flag and motifs were designed to capture a Cuban feel while also to fit comfortably within the Dillon’s brand family and identity program.

The labels across the series will all be unique but in each release will fit over the same bottle used for all products. These bottles are printed using ACL and tell the story of the Here&There collaboration series and concept of “local from another place”.

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Here&There Collab Series

Dillon’s Small Batch is a distillery who’s heart and vision is in crafting spirits from locally sourced ingredients and realizing the talents and passions of local people; creators, makers, producers, farmers and neighbours — doing great things from a world local to them.

What’s incredible about this philosophy is that it creates community — not just local community, but a broader community assembled of like minds. Not surprisingly, those that share a similar vision and philosophy are drawn to each other on this local common ground and the ideas flow.

Thinking deeply about local; asking what is local, to whom and what are the standards and ethos to uphold we have concluded that local is a promise, approach and practice as much as it is a uniqueness of place that one can taste in the final product.

Local is about the confidence in identity, transparency and honesty. It’s about the end audience knowing the stories of source, place and the people where ingredients and materials originate. It’s about you trusting that the producers of these ingredients and components made every effort to stick to their hearts and vision that local can be a viable practice worth pursuing.

It’s among this new family of producers, growers, farmers and makers that Dillon’s has found a broader sense community and idea sharing. And naturally along with this friendship, a desire to collaborate as a means to cross-pollinate their learnings and products but most of all to share each other's rich stories and learnings with their own audiences that believe in and appreciate local.

In order for Dillon’s to participate in collaborations with their distant friends and fit these products into the “brand local” positioning of the Dillon’s brand, Insite strategized and development a collaboration series called Here&There — a symbol of the relationship with other local makers and producers.

The fine people at Dillon’s will be crafting batch products with their remote collaborators to bring audiences unique ideas, tastes, stories and experiences. This may mean oranges and lemons from their organic farmer friends in Florida, special collaborative blends of whisky with other small batch maker friends around the world, authentic artisanal spirits of source by master distillers that they will work with to marry their talents and bring home other maker's stories — and much more.

The Here&There symbol on Dillon's products signal the fruits of these collaborations and as people to refer to the stories on the Dillon's website that highlight the adventures and efforts among this community.

ROLE:

Brand & Identity Development

Copywriting

Package Design

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Great Plains Craft Spirits is a whisky company that has positioned themselves within a relatively new category in Canadian whisky know as finishers and bottlers.

The practice of sourcing high quality whiskies and then finishing in specialty cognac, brandy or armagnac barrels to impart additional flavours and character to the whisky is a relatively common practice in Europe. However for a Canadian whisky to endeavour to present finishing to the conservative Canadian market is a risk.

Consequently we identified the need to create a unique brand and package that could introduce the idea of finishing to audiences but in a manner that felt as though it was a well established and highly regarded practice.

Canadian whisky in currently under appreciated within Canada since most Canadians don’t have access to well aged product. The well aged whiskies don’t typically end up in audiences hands because of the high cost as well as the demand for such aged product as blending stock for the large Canadian brands.

The offering from Great Plains brings 18, 19 and possibly 20+ year whisky to the shelves and with the additional finishing, a taste profile that is unique, complex and mature.

Production

The label is intentionally uncomplicated in production but utilizes techniques that are symbolic of high quality print from past eras. A deep deboss of all content is hit with a roughened metallic foil to give the feel of old bonds. The cap is finished with laser etched identity and then wrapped with a strip seal reminiscent of regulated alcohol products in the 1800’s.

Brand babes in the woods

Ooh, here’s something most alcohol brand start-ups don’t prepare for. Success. Yah. Most startups we meet simply haven’t done what’s necessary to be successful, at least right away. They neglect to learn about the business as it relates to the product.

More often than not, startups jump in to the alcohol market with a lofty goal but no adequate or real world plan. Making things more difficult for themselves, these startups lack the skills and base knowledge necessary to fulfil their goal within their desired timeline and budget. Basically they "don’t know what they don’t know" so as to avoid the issues, obstacles and challenges that are in every startup's way.

We’ve seen it over and over.

Consequently, once in the woods, most folks can’t see the opportunities, holes in the market, ways to do things better and more efficiently, or best of all, ways to adjust so that they add actual critical differentiation and meaningful value to the market and audiences' lives.

Most startups fail to make quick gains and capitalize on opportunities early enough to avoid burning through their financial buffers. Which leads them stumbling down the path of panic; impulsive opportunistic decision making, conservatism, ubiquity and sameness along with all the other ill prepared brands that are failing slowly on the shelves.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Welcome to Insite’s Alcohol Brand Business Consulting. We provide startup consulting sessions and continued alcohol beverage business consulting for new and young alcohol beverage companies. Engage Insite early enough in the dreaming and planning process of your brand and we’ll assist you in fast tracking the learning curve of the industry.

Call it bootstrapping or boot camp or whatever, the short of it is that we’re not new to these woods and can help you to get ready for and understand the market; the mechanics of the market, the industry regulations, taxes, hidden costs, distribution strategy and pitfalls, retailer needs and behaviours, licensee needs, audience wants and desires, what works and what doesn’t and more.

Along with Insite, we have assembled an A-Team of proven industry expert friends that we bring to the fun depending on what our clients require. This gives you access to invaluable knowledge and expertise during the critical time in your business where you can actually use it. And bonus, these new contacts will be your angels for the years to come as you continue to grow and meet the new challenges that come with maturity. You know, success.

Connect with us early in the process and let’s discuss how we can help you.

ROLE:

Brand & Identity Development

Package Design

ROLE:

Brand & Identity Development

Package Design

Station Home, located in mid town Burlington Ontario, is a lifestyle, home decor and design store aimed at urbanites and their busy evolving lives. Station is a hub where people come and go, from within the city and all over the world. Station is a source of supply and outfitting for the way people dwell and it’s a connection point to find inspiration, like minded people, style guidance, decor and creature comforts for wherever one calls home.

Station Home is a concept and design collaboration between Centro Garden and Holland Park Garden Gallery. Following the visibly groundbreaking success of Centro Garden, Holland Park Garden Gallery, one of Canada’s most successful garden lifestyle retailers asked Centro’s founder Jason Pepetone to re-imagine their garden centre and create and expansion concept store.

Jason invited Insite to assist since we were part of the thinking and design behind the original Centro Garden and have maintained a keen interest in the evolution of the category and retail in general.

What was concluded was to create a home & garden lifestyle store that was cross pollinated with the evolution of Centro.

Situated within an old industrial warehouse, Station was designed to take over and luxe-up the space while not losing the raw spontaneous warehouse appeal.

The environment leverages an industrial metaphor as well as the grande nature of a transit hub while marrying the softer comforts and surfaces of urban loft living.

Custom details, surfaces and fixtures were designed and fabricated locally in addition to sourcing and restoring vintage industrial equipment to utilize as displays.

A complete retail package was also designed to compliment the feel of the store while creating a tonal contrast that further softens the industrial backdrop.

You can find the store at 2243 Fairview Street in Burlington — between Holland Park and Nicklebrook Brewing.

ROLE:

Brand Development

Naming

Package Design

Brand ecosytem and nomenclature

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A new wine brand for Steven Campbell of the highly regarded national wine importer and distributer Lifford, the dream and lofty goal of this brand and wine company challenges to search the world for the very best wines and wineries that are making great efforts to reduce the impact they have on the planet and bottle them for Canadians.

Either by sustainable practices, organic and biodynamic methods, land stewardship or other environmentally responsible actions, these wines, wineries and wine makers represent those taking leadership roles in the industry and pushing the envelope of responsibility.

In this initial wine, aside from its environmental practices, it has reached Carbonzero certification. Insite dubbed this category of wine approach #kindwine. We assisted in all aspects of thinking from naming, positioning, brand, identity system and packaging program.

Watch for these incredible and kind wines to hit the Canadian market starting spring 2019.

Package Design and Illustration

Following our redesign of the Greenhouse Juice packaging line and system, we were asked to create a series that would play off of the main Greenhouse Juice product line as an obvious family member, but which would have its own look that could be more suitable for quick sell situations like cafés and variety — where the whole Greenhouse family of product would likely not be sold.

We used our main line’s core system elements but introduced a more product forward name hierarchy typical of the sales channel as well as we illustrated an organic geometric form to represent the Kombucha mother — an iconic form which could become the identifying element between the flavours.

Brand building and Interior Experience Planning, Interior Design, Fixture Design and Interior Environmental Graphics Creation

Royal Beneficials’ brand parent is an established European mineral water company that has been bottling mineral waters from 3 different Slovakian Tatras mountain sources for years. The brand’s 3 waters had distinctly different mixes of beneficial minerals which the Europeans from the region had relied on for over a century.

Insite was asked to assist in positioning the brand for the North American market place and increase the saturation of the product within various specialty and mainstream grocery stores channels.

Culturally, the European audiences understood the functional benefits of the brand’s mineral waters as well as how to fit the 3 waters into their lives like solutions to daily lifestyle maintenance.

Unfortunately, communicating the benefits to North American audiences was not so easy. We identified the challenges for the Brand in North America were:

1. Retail resistance — retail buyers are saturated with waters of all kinds and as such the category has been commoditized and diluted with waters that have no additional benefit beyond hydration and convenience of portability. Buyers were indicating to the brand owners that the stores didn’t need another water.

2. Audience Knowledge — audiences in NA are not as knowledgable or aware of the benefits of the specific minerals within the brand’s mineral waters.

3. Audience Fatigue — audiences in NA are inundated with waters that have focused on hydration and re-hydration as the main benefits which has diminished the category of importance to a health regimen.

4. Claim Regulations — much of modern dietary health is still emerging and consequently not yet considered concrete science in Canada and the US. Talking about even the content of specific minerals is taboo if they don’t fit the standard recommended doses set out by the country’s dietary food guidelines.

In jumping in we simplified the brand’s soul value and essence and trimmed some of the old brand’s layers of communication that we felt were potentially confusing or simply distracting.

We concluded that a name change as part of the brand change would sharpen the message and allow us to create a more modern position.

Next we looked hard at the product line and determined that users were organizing the products into lifestyle needs. We created 3 distinct uses and descriptive product names — 1. Detoxify for cruising through the week and staying well  2. Defend for preparing your body for more elevated output of play or party and 3. Restore for easing the impact of the party and a quicker recovery.

We then set out to redesign the identity, palette and package. Pushing the concept of Royal as a suggestion of living well, power and self control we designed a visual palette that drew from the heritage of Royal crests or playing cards, re-interpreted in a stripped back modern context. We intentionally removed all colour to be purposely black and white — a suggestion of the definitiveness of self control but also with the goal to visually fit in or blend in to the lifestyle of the audiences. Sort of “stand out” by not standing out.

To subtly re-enforce the lifestyle use of the product, the basic bold line work of the Royal figures relate state of the user. Horizontal lines for cruising, inclining lines to winding up, and declining lines to heading down toward rest.

We also addressed the ubiquity of the water challenge by stating that “This is not bottled water” as a casual position statement. To get viewers and specifically buyers to look again. We support the assertion with the term functional water or “Beneficial” water. Consequently Beneficial was sewn into the naming convention and copyrighted.

When it came to package, we dialled back the importance of the minerals themselves and elevated the use and emotional benefit. Starting with name and supported by descriptions of as it relates to the audiences’ weekly routines, we fit the products into the lifestyle of the active energetic and urban target users. 

Then further to reinforce the brand’s fit, we created image content to capture the spirit and situation of the users lifestyles with the product in situation.

Web: Royalbeneficials.com

With every project or brand we work on, one of the first things we do is identify the challenges for the future brand. What must it overcome? What is the deep value of the brand and product that might not be easily understood?

When we were asked to create a brand for Bar Chef, one of the world’s most innovative cocktail artisan’s and cocktail experiences located in Toronto, we quickly identified that the challenge was that this product was very premium offering within a new category that didn’t currently exist in Canada or more importantly, within the rigid categories of the LCBO, Ontario’s single alcohol retail source.

Who cares? Well the issue is, if there isn’t a category, the product would risk either A. not being sold in that retail chain, or B. listed and placed on the shelf within an incompatible category that could taint the brand’s position and diminish sales.

Bar Chef was producing an exquisite version of the “Old Fashioned” cocktail. Every part of the cocktail was artisanal from the base whisky produced in Toronto by Stalk&Barrel to the botanicals, bitters and the local maple syrup.

We identified another challenge which was that the preconceived ideas of what the product was, laid within the audiences past experiences with pre-mixed alcoholic beverages. And these weren’t typically great experiences; generally low quality sugary drinks consumed by young and price sensitive audiences looking to consume in quantity or without any discerning care for quality.

The audiences we needed to attract were those already interested in the growing cocktail culture but who might be without cocktail preparation knowledge, or without a home bar stocked well enough to attempt complex cocktail themselves or the already engaged in premium cocktails but looking for the elevated experience that can come from an artisan.

What this product was attempting to be was a finished object. Complete. Not a pre-mixed set of ingredients assembled into a bottle, rather a definitive statement and opinion on the Old Fashioned. It was a “complete cocktail” in our minds and as such we established that term as the position of the brand.

The first step in the brand build was to get the entire team to agree that the product would only be a success if A. everyone agreed to only refer to the product series as “Complete Cocktails”, and never “pre-mixed” or “ready made”, or “convenient” and B. To encourage the media and retailer to also only think of the product as the same. We needed to create a new premium category by separating the Bar Chef creation from the down and dirty pre-mixed field. To carve a new space with hopes that the shelf category would back fill with other sophisticated and premium offerings. 

The next challenge was that the brand was a collaboration between two existing brands — Bar Chef and the Toronto Whisky Distillery Stillwater who would be supplying their Stalk & Barrel Red as the base for the cocktail. Both of these brands needed to be represented on the packaging and within the brand architecture.

Problem with a brand with multiple principals is that it can often be confusing and diluted in voice. So attention was needed to ensure the brand would be strong, confident and clearly demonstrated in terms of emotional value to the audience without the noise of multiple brands screaming over one another.

What we were able to convince the team of was that the creative source is the asset and so should always be the emotional lead. In this case Frankie Solerik from Bar Chef was the emotional asset since he was the artist and creative mind behind the cocktail. That suggested that the S&B branding position needed to be diminished  since most people wouldn’t really be all that concerned with that part of the ingredient list as long as they knew it was also craft.

Following this decision on architecture we designed the label and package program to stand out from the typical offerings on the shelves — to sit within a craft and hand spun genre but to also be able to be produced at volume. The package needed to feel ultra premium to match its price point as well as to be flexible to roll into a series of products once the initial success proved worthy of more cocktails.

The result is recognizable and in itself a tactile experience to handle and open.

The front label is not glued to the glass and can be removed by ripping the yellow band. Once off, the user can read the reverse side of the front label to learn more about the project and people involved.

Images Credit: Leanne Neufeld

Brand and Experience Planning and Interior Design

Image Credit: Allan Glanfield

Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers is situated in Canada’s largest wine region and sources their base fruit for distilling from the wineries that dot the map around their facility. Why? Because making alcohol from wine grapes produces a superior well balanced neutral alcohol from which to make their vodka, gins, bitters and other seasonal spirits.

They also source fresh tender fruit and ingredients from neighbouring farms for their specialty spirits. This isn’t just a story of neighbourly love, or quality, this is also a larger discussion of sustainable environmental practices. Simply, sourcing the largest component of your production from your neighbours saves energy and reduces waste. The reduced carbon footprint from this activity — this philosophy — is massive.

From the get go for Dillon’s as a distiller from wine grapes, it only made perfect sense to develop a vermouth. However it was critical to Geoff Dillon and his father Dr. Peter Dillon that if they did venture into the legacy field of vermouth, it had better be awesome. So after years of trial, tasting, experimenting and tinkering they nailed it.

Now with just a few complicated governmental barriers to get out of the way, their amazing vermouth will be available directly to the public through an agent and hopefully, eventually, the LCBO.

We set out to design a package that was both reflective of the tradition of vermouths but also to appear well rooted within the Dillon’s identity and package system.

We hand illustrated the label art in near entirety before scanning and producing for refinement in the Mac.

The bottle uses 2 ceramic ink colours screened directly to the glass and is hand dipped in wax to finish the cork closure.

Rebrand and Packaging System

West Avenue Cider was started in 2012 by highly regarded chef Chris Hayworth and partner Amy Robson. Their goal from the outset was to make the best possible authentic craft cider in Ontario Canada using heritage apples — particularly those varieties typical of the UK’s traditional ciders.

Very quickly West Avenue’s ciders became know throughout North America as being among the best — and have amassed a ridiculous amount of critical awards to support the accolades. As the visibility of the brand increased, Chris and Amy began to realize that the startup brand and package that they had created for themselves might not be able to grow with their success or keep up in broader more competitive markets and retail situations.

Furthermore they felt their start-up package didn’t reflect their deep sense of responsibility to craft and authenticity as well as it wasn’t communicating all that was unique about the product.

And finally to further complicate the whole, West Avenue had purchased and moved to an established apple farm and was planting thousands of heritage apple trees with the goal of creating a full time facility and tasting experience — a real home for the brand.

Consequently Insite was asked to evolve the brand into a more sophisticated presentation — a rebrand that could maintain existing audiences but which would collect the missing ideas behind West Avenue and build this in for the long haul.

Insite assisted by boiling down the core emotional value of the brand and creating a strategy around future steps. The missing concepts of craft, authenticity and sense of place were injected into the brand essence and visual palette and in addition, an identity was created for the farm that could tell a separate but complimentary story to the cider brand — called Somerset Orchards.

With the brand work complete and new identity for West Avenue and Somerset were created along with a communication system for the packaging. New packaging was developed for multiple tiers for West Avenue that would provide clear paths for future releases, the first of which are the 500mL series such as the immensely popular Heritage Dry as well as the critically acclaimed 750mL releases such as Gold Dust.

Much more to come from West Avenue ahead so watch for them in a wide array of local pups and restaurants that care about what they serve as well as retail in the future.

Package System Redesign

Greenhouse Juice is the idol of the cold-pressed green juice movement in Toronto if not all of Canada. From it’s quiet start in January 2014, the brand has exploded in popularity and distribution through it’s network of small company owned outlets. Hanging on to its roots, the brand knew if it were to grow outward, it would need to solve a few key challenge that were clearly going to restrict the brands success if not resolved.

1. Shelf Life
2. Package Differentiation / Competitiveness
3. Package Visibility / Shelf Presence
4. Clear communication of product and value to new audiences

The startup package design was beautifully simple and met the needs of the original intention. Hand sell cold-pressed juice to a fast moving deeply engaged urban audience. That allowed the colour of the juice alone to be the star and the brand elements of the package to take a back seat. All sold in Greenhouse Juice stores meant that the environment could do the talking for identity and brand, further relieving the package of any tiring effort.

However in 2016 the Greenhouse team knew that expanding into environments that they didn’t control would be their only option for strengthening the brand in the face of extremely fast assembling copy-cat competition. Greenhouse 1.0 knew that they had already lost their visual uniqueness amongst this new crowd as well they feared that if they hastily expanded into grocery they faced the ultimate compromise — pasteurization for shelf life — something they were deeply apposed to.

The solution was to develop a proprietary cold filtering process using light — “Light Filtering” — to extend shelf life and stability of the delicate natural juice as well as change the packaging to suit and compete in the new environments.

We were invited to assist the Greenhouse Juice team to focus their visual communication on package as well as create a new package system and package design that their team could manage and roll out across their full and extended product line. So in collaboration with the Green team we redesigned their packaging range so that it could better communicate in more intense retail environments outside and more distant from their own aesthetically controlled, hand sell stores and situations. Picking up on the Greenhouse design team’s desire for a craft paper, the system cleanly concentrates the most important and differentiating product merits on the facing panel. Then the system utilizes bold and colorful geometric symbols to separate product categories while tying the family’s core natural value together within a craft paper and subtle silkscreen feel.

Greenhouse Juice Website: https://greenhousejuice.com

Niagara Oast House Brewers is a craft brewery in Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario Canada that has quickly established itself as the “Don’t miss’em” destination for travellers as well as becoming recognized as a critical maker of craft brew.

Key to their success has been the Barn Raiser Country Ale — an easy drinking sunny day glass half full toast lands jam side up kind of beer that simply makes everyone happy.

Demand has been so good that the powers that be demanded a can. And so the quest began to get this fresh faced beer into the hands of the masses while not sacrificing quality of taste, ingredients or bubble.

A few years in the making to get it just right and voila!

Insite was asked to create a package that expressed the cheerful farm pop of the Barn Raiser image while also building on the main Oast Brand and Identity.

We applied our bold farm pop look to the can as well as custom engineered a special 4 pack “lunch box” that sports a convertible handle which makes it ideal for carry out or for stacking case displays in retail once the handle is tucked out of the way.

In 2010 we began working with a young distiller with a simple goal to make some of the most uncompromising spirits that Canada had ever seen. He’d source local honest ingredients, work with local artisans, proud Ontario grain growers and malters and go to work building onto Canada’s respected but mostly forgotten tradition of fine 100% Canadian Rye Whisky.

First, using his copper pot still, he perfected The White Rye which expressed the great personality and aging potential of local Ontario rye and malt. Then he sourced oak barrels from respected American and Canadian cooperages before finally, over 3 years ago, filling the first oak cask to ready and send it through time.

To be called Canadian Rye Whisky means something. But to be called 100% Canadian Rye Whisky means something more. It means pride. It means at least 3 full years of aging in oak casks. It means 100% of the rye is Canadian – not blended with other grains or corn. It means 100% of the rye saw the full aging – not a blend of some aged and some young. It means liquid truth.

This summer Geoff Dillon @dillonsdistills dusted off the oak time machine he called Cask 2 to reflect on his dream of making a Canadian Rye that the world would recognize as distinctly Canadian. Of making a Canadian Rye that we will all be proud of; as friends and locals and Canadians.

Today Geoff and the gang at @dillonsdistills realized the dream and released this ultra limited cask 2 to a long awaiting crowd of enthusiastic whisky drinkers of which I’m one. Hit it out of the park Mr. Dillon.

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The package design aims to tell the simplistic story of making this rye the right way by sourcing Ontario rye grain and then milling, malting and coopering here in Ontario. The copper bands that adorn the 200ml bottle are used in the Chad Copper Pot Still to increase the rye to copper exposure during the distillation process. Finally the map wrapper tells the stories of all the characters involved in making such a critical product for Canada.

Being that we are believers in healthy eating as best as one can manage these days we helped our wee entrepreneur to style some healthier alternatives to the conventional refined sugar and imported concentrate lemonade. Starting with a base of clean caffeine free botanical teas produced by a Canadian tea maker, we made a number of recipes that built on the tea toward a refreshing cold tea sweetened with local apple cider and local unpasteurized honey. The result was fantastic and Rem’s weekly audience of pint sized fans grew.

Eventually parents asked for recipes so Remi asked if we could help step it up and produce a package with him to sell the teas along with the recipe. Tea Fox Beverage Co. was born.

What’s next? Rem intends to scale the offering from the Sunday morning hand selling toward retail, hence the Happy Camper Tea Set now available at Centro Garden in Downtown Burlington. His goal is to begin to truly fund his dream venture and build the Red Fox Animal Rescue Centre and Foundation. Go kid, go.

Located on the Beamsville Bench, a sub appellation of Niagara’s wine producing region, Thirty Bench Wine Makers is a critically acclaimed wine producer which specializes in making small batch riesling wines. When winemaker Emma Garner made the move to produce their first sparkling wine, a riesling was a natural.

Insite assisted Thirty Bench in creating their current brand and packaging family 10 years ago and so it was an honour to be asked to revise the label line up to tell the story of this new sparkling.

Our goal was to design a package that could continue the bold natural and rustic chic of the brand while stepping into what is typically seen as a fancy attire kind of room for sparkling.

The solution is based on contrasts. The story of a delicate bubbly wine produced at a rugged winery is told in the label’s decorative artsy bling against dark handsome austerity as well as with the finish around the closure where we swapped the traditional shiny hood for a stripped down exposed cage contrasted with the attention of a ribbon and cigar band.

Wine Brand Creation

The Kew family farm was a land grant to an officer in the early 1800’s which began a long tradition of farming and family heritage. The property, being so beautiful as well as situated along a critical trade route, solidified it as a Grande Dame of the Region.

Vinifera was planted by Niagara wine visionaries in the mid 1970’s making Kew’s vines some of the oldest in the region. Since then the estate established a renewed fame within the industry for producing some of the best, most consistent wines which were most often blended within neighbouring wines.

The latest steward owners of the estate approached us with the idea of creating a winery on the estate that would finally showcase the quality of the wines as well as the beauty of the place — to be a gem of Niagara. This wine industry family wished also to make the place their “home” of wine and hospitality, in itself a demonstration of their genuine gracious approach to wine.

Insite assisted by re-imagining the role of wine and facility in the mindset of the audience. Our goal was to develop a unique and emotional experience for visitors who could make the wine pilgrimage to the old Kew estate.

And so a brand was developed that relied on concepts of country graciousness, legacy, family, attention to detail, timelessness and most of all — relationships.

The branding rolled out into package, interior planning and design, fabrication and selections, facility design, and landscape design — all of which was tied together to provide a cohesive finished package.

“From these old vines.”

The interior experience was conceived to shake up the typical impersonal “tasting room” routine and provide guests a more intimate and personalized engagement with the people and wines of Kew. Tasting bars and point of sale counters were replaced with friendly conversation areas such as a kitchen, cafe, dining room and outdoor terrace — all designed to make people feel at home, relaxed and encouraged to take their time.

The end result is a true expression of the goals and dreams of the client as well as what we feel is the desire of the current wine lifestyle engaged audience.