Pumped - The Art of Modern Beer Exhibition

Following my developing focuses for COP3, I had a new idea whilst sipping from a can of Five Points IPA at the Water Lane Boathouse Opening Night. I noticed the extremely minimal but bold graphics on the can and couldn't help but think about how the beer industry has sky-rocketed and almost got that bit more sophisticated with modern graphic design. This could fit perfectly into my developing ideas for COP, possibly moving away from pastiche and past designs and looking more to the future of trends in design. 

Funnily enough the next week, I saw there was this new exhibition on at Colours May Vary called "Pumped - The Art of Modern Beer". It may have been fate, so I decided to go to this print exhibition to maybe push my ideas further and gather a bit of initial research to put me ahead!

SO, it was a print exhibition profiling the best in design when it comes to craft beer. 
From the bright coloured twisted paint designs of Toøl to the arty multi designer approach of Cloudwater, beer these days means more than a pint of luke warm bitter, it tells a story and offers a unique view into the interests of the brewer and brewery. Often a labour of love, each can, bottle or font design is thought about carefully and lovingly placed on the side of a product in the hope that their beer will stand out more than the next guy and give their brand even more character. 

Super Friendz presented works of the following artists and corresponding breweries at the exhibition: 

ALEC DOHERTY (Partizan)
ANNA BEAM (Cloudwater)
DR.ME (Cloudwater)
HAMMO (Alphabet)
JAMES OCKELFORD (North Brewing Co)
KASPER LEDET (Toøl)
KEITH SHORE (Mikkeller)
NICK DWYER (Beavertown)
STEALTHY RABBIT (Mad Hatter)
ALIYAH HUSSAIN (Cloudwater)
JOHN POWELL-JONES (Cloudwater)
MARIEL OSBORN (Cloudwater) 
TEXTBOOK STUDIO (Cloudwater)

This gives me a nice initial list of artists and breweries who's work/branding is greatly relevant to my concept idea of focusing on the developing style of graphics used within the beer industry and how its completely changing with the more modern, independent craft breweries. 
I was particularly drawn to these pieces which were used on labels and ads:



Collage is a completely different approach, work by DR.ME
















The graphical responses of Kasper Ledet for Toøl Brewery nicely partner background contextual type - often bold and charismatic - with an overlaid graphic - particularly like the marbling one.
Love the layout and typesetting of it as a whole piece and could imagine them on beer labels.































Loved to see Nick Dwyer's work for Beavertown. 
- Much more illustrative style spread across the label, with hand rendered type.
- Very bold and playful
- Reflects how illustration is becoming more prominent. 
- I can experiment with how my illustration can fit into this next year