Alternative Medicine Brewing Company

Brand Development

Alternative Medicine Brewing Company is a craft brewery opening in Mount Vernon, NY in 2021. In 2020 they asked us to help develop their brand identity. Their name, a tongue-in-cheek nod to cure-alls and pseudoscience through the ages, suggests a playful irreverence and plenty of humor.

To develop a visual style to align with the tone established by the name, we delved into the rich design history of patent medicine branding & advertising from the Victorian era, tarot cards from the 18th & 19th century and surreal art. The result is quirky and intriguing, using warm, vintage textures and colors with a contemporary aesthetic to create a truly distinct look.

Knowing that Alternative Medicine Brewing Company would need to use their logo in many ways across the brand–social media, tap-pulls, signage, bottles, merchandise, etc.–we wanted to create a flexible brand system that could accommodate any, and every, execution that they could think of. With this in mind, we developed a series of logos and brand marks, ranging from the most simple form of their name, “AMBC”, to a detailed illustration including their full name, location and distinctive ornamentation. The system is cohesive, with each mark unified by the AMBC look and feel, while also offering multiple directions to choose from at every branding opportunity.

Brand System

Brand Applications

Beer Labels

T-shirts

Illustrations for Merchandise

Icons: The Elements of Beer

Version 1: Simplified

Version 2: Color

Version 3: Illustration Integration

Can Labels

AMBC wanted a label for their flagship brew: the triple dry-hopped Juice Cleanse. But they didn’t want a one off design–they wanted this label to set the look and feel for all future labels as well, making production a matter of switching out fonts and colors. Highlighting the signature Alternative Medicine caduceus graphic, we created a detailed surrounding illustration reminiscent of ornate Victorian apothecary bottles, in a subtle shade of the background color to draw attention to the caduceus and logo.

The label design can be repurposed for various different future brews, from using the same illustration and font in different colors for different iterations of Juice Cleanse, to introducing a new color, font, and illustration for entirely different beers, like the Commander Ryan’s Irish Red Ale pictured here.