We recently sat down with Bristol Beer Factory for an annual wash-up of all the work we’ve done for them in 2022, but it also fell on the anniversary of my start date at Hey! What?
What better time to indulgently and gratuitously reflect on my first year at the agency, show a few highlights, and compare and contrast that experience with my previous background of working in-house.
Often when working in house, you are limited to “their” stuff, and “their” stuff only. Often “their” stuff might not be the best thing to use to get your point across. Sometimes “their” stuff is just shit.
Bristol Beer Factory are not one of these brands; they’re very welcoming of us broadening the scope of the design work to enable them to compete with modern trends of craft beer whilst retaining their core values.
We did a lot for Bristol Beer Factory in 2022; from packaging, websites, photography, animation and film. Looking after this brand has been one of the many highlights of my first year at Hey! What? and here are a few of my favourite moments.
North St Cider
One of the first projects I worked on at Hey! What? was the to rebrand North Street Cider to allow it to sit more closely with the rest of the BBF family. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I took a run at this and incorporated some design elements from Infinity Lager to create this new look for BBF’s cider offering.
Roam Series
Going on a euro trip with Bristol Beer Factory. An opportunity to experiment with vivid, unique colour treatments and play with the graphical approach to maps.
Laser Juice
You’ve got to be a bit bold with a design for a beer called Laser Juice - A new core brew for their new session IPA. I’ve worked with brands with a strong heritage and geographical identity before - to produce something a little bat-shit was brilliant fun and I’m really pleased with how well it’s been received.
Christmas
Closing the year out with two of my favourite designs was a joy. Taking some festive classics and applying their characteristics to can; abstract bubbles for Bucks Fizz, and a more elegant art deco approach for the Espresso Martini - taking inspiration from the drink’s iconic triangular glass shape. I love how these have come out and can’t wait to try and blag a box of these for the next office party.
When you work in-house, you can take multiple shots at goal and you exist within a constant feedback loop. You’re embedded in a brand and you’re able to see the real results of the decisions you make along the way.
A common misconception of working for an agency rather than in-house is that you lose this depth. You have the breadth of work, but no substance. You get to deliver the work, then sign off and then move on to the next shiny thing without delving deeper.
At Hey! What? We love shiny things. We are an agency, yes - but we give a shit about whether the thing we made, did the thing it was meant to do and by working so closely with Bristol Beer Factory we are able to continue to deliver on-brand solutions time and time again.
Bristol Beer Factory was one of the first clients Hamish brought on board when he started Hey! What? and I’m excited to showcase what we’ve been developing for 2023 as we continue to collaborate and map out all of our futures together.
A broader case study of Hey! What?'s work with Bristol Beer Factory can be found here: https://www.heywhat.co.uk/bristolbeerfactory