Joshua Berman Art Directs #1 and #5 on the 2015 Top 10 Craft Beer Sales List

Last week CraftBeer.com posted an article about Information Resources, Inc.'s 2015 craft brewery sales data. According to their research, Funky Buddha Brewery of Oakland Park, Florida came in first with nearly $1 million in sales in 2015, and Wake Forest, NC-based White Street Brewing Co. came in fifth, with nearly a quarter-million in sales. I am very excited because I had the honor of art directing these two breweries over the last few years.

Image courtesy of Triangle Business Journal

From the article...

“Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) has released its results of the “Top 10 New BA Craft Vendors Based on Dollar Sales” for 2015 and it places Florida-based Funky Buddha Brewery as the front runner. Following close behind in 5th place is North Carolina’s White Street Brewing Company. Of the top five breweries, these two have something in common—The Brandit.”

— CraftBeer.com

During my time at The Brandit I worked directly with both of these clients, developing all of the packaging for White Street Brewing Company and creating the brand-level art direction for all of Funky Buddha's products. Dan Bowman, principal of The Brandit, was the creative director on both of these clients. While I personally created the lettering for White Street, I worked with Rubens Scarelli to develop the illustrations for each of Funky Buddha's packages. 

Triangle Business News Also posted a bit on it here: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2016/08/25/triangle-brewery-lands-on-top-10-of-craft-vendors.html

White Street Brewing Co. Announces Release of Emmalynn

Earlier this month All About Beer Magazine posted that White Street Brewing Company has announced the release of Emmalynn, their new Belgian Blonde. This will be part of their Main Street Series of beers, likely available year-round. I have designed all of the White Street Brewing Company work since day 1, and this one was especially fun. We took inspiration from the traditional lampposts, a north star of the White Street brand, that line some of their larger cities more well-known plazas. The waves of golden wheat speak to the primary ingredients in the beer, and lend a flowing visual texture to the medallion.

From the article...

“Emmalynn fits perfectly into the Main Street series. Each of our flagships is a crowd-pleasing, approachable example of a classic style that showcases the different aspects of the beer world. Kölsch (winner of the 2014 World Beer Cup Gold Award) is our light, crisp, clean beer; the Scottish Ale highlights the sweetness of malt-forward beers; Hoptimist boasts the bright, tropical aromas found in West Coast hops. Emmalynn is unique because she possesses flavors and aromas that show off the yeast and fermentation practices.”

— Ian VanGundy, Brewing Operations Manager at White Street

The state-wide release of the beer will be on September 12th, which is White Street's 4th anniversary: a fitting date for their fourth product in the Main Street Series lineup.

A few interesting articles featuring my work have surfaced recently, including White Street's Main Street series featured on Packaging of the World, Funky Buddha's Hop Gun IPA featured on BeerLabelsInMotion, and very recently SunUp Brewing Company's new can lineup featured on TheDieline. 

This is especially exciting for me, because it is the last package design I worked on for White Street as a team member of The Brandit. For those of you who don't know, left my position as Art Director of The Brandit in June. We still have a wonderful working relationship; I continue to provide brand strategy and art direction as they need, and hopefully I can continue to provide packaging design for White Street Brewing in this manner for years to come.

SunUp Brewing Cans on The Dieline

Elizabeth Freeman, contributor to The Dieline, posted The Brandit's packaging design for SunUp Brewing Company's canned products on TheDieline.com. I'm really pumped about this, as I art directed this project from day one, designed the logo, and worked with the illustrator, Mads Berg, to develop these cans.

The press-check process for these products was especially intense. We checked 5 products in a single day, which is quite a challenge, especially when there are only 2 shared colors across all 5 cans. That means there are 22 unique colors to check, way more than one would normally attempt for a single day of press-checking. To make this happen, I went in the day early and hand-sorted through thousands of ink-on-aluminum swatches to pick what would work best together ahead of time. I also picked backups, in case they looked a bit different when covering the can.

White Street Brewing Co. Packaging Featured on Packaging of the World

Derrick Lin, Packaging of the World Chief Curator, posted The Brandit's packaging design for White Street Brewing Company's Main Street series of products today on the front page of packagingoftheworld.com. This is extremely exciting for me, as I've been working on White Street's brand for over 3 years.

Since these three products, Kolsch, Hoptimist IPA, and Scottish, rolled out in 2014, we've worked on four more brands. Koschei the Deathless was unveiled in 2014, and hopefully you can see some of the other new stuff in the marketplace soon. If you live in Raleigh-Durham, NC you should be able to find all these at any local grocery store.