BRIEF // Two extreme brewing techniques, two unusual beers. One an aberration of nature gone wrong; organic kelp, bonito and sea water, titled Umami Monster, and the other an ultra-processed and industrial ale made with extracts and flavouring, titled Mecha-Hop.
With these counterpoints, Garage Project commissioned me to create manga backstories, beer labels based on the designs of movie artist Greg Broadmore, and a whole range of promotional material including giant street posters, masks, t-shirts and limited edition screen-prints. An awesome job.
Close up, of the art work that was produced at an epic 21,218 x 15,000 pixels to cover all print requirements.
Mecha-Hop, an experimental IPA - 100% Industrial Process Ale. Uses only the finest vacuum evaporated pure dry malt extract and Warrior, Amarillo and Simcoe liquid CO2 hop extracts. Photo by Michael Valli.
Umami Monster, a smokey, strong brew with New Zealand grown Kombu (kelp), Japanese Katsobushi (dried, fermented bonito flakes), smoked malt and sea water. Photo by Michael Valli.
Battling bottles. The artwork was created in a single piece to wrap around both bottles. Photo by Michael Valli.
The monsters themselves were designed by movie maestro & friend, Greg Broadmore. You can see more of his fantastic work at his blog, King of Fatboss.
Launch Posters, two AO limited edition posters went up around Melbourne for the weekend of GABS (the Great Australian Beer Special) where the beer launched.
Typography sample, each label uses only three colours, plus paper, leading to unique graphic challenges.
Tap Label, Mecha-Hop.
Tap Label, Umami Monster.
Screen-Printed shirts, an homage to old Kaiju diagrams were also produced. Full project viewable here.
Garage Project also commissioned me to create a comic backstory for the two creatures, a humour take on the folly-of-man creation myth wherein the brewery accidentally unleashes the horror or nature and science in their endless pursuit of progress.
Designer as Umami Monster. As a special giveaway for the launch I designed two unique monster masks that used the same die-cut. With some simple folding they formed 3D masks, that with hashtags and social media info on the back proved to be perfect beer-drinker-bait.
Just some of the monsters that used our hashtag to celebrate the launch, posting photos to Instagram and Twitter.
Generously proportioned limited edition prints were locally printed here in Wellington. With the art being created using only three colours, we were able to authentically recreate the complexity of the hi-res digital file with hand produced screens.
