The challenge
Located in the 400-person village of Edgerton, Ribstone Creek is a craft brewery deeply rooted in the local community. They are known across the Prairies for their award-winning beer and creative brewing projects. One of these projects was the Prairie Pirate series. It was centred around a fictional character that robbed ingredients from other breweries to brew collaboration beers. We were engaged to develop the Prairie Pirate character and to translate the concept to a series of beer label illustrations, social comics and apparel. The comics acted as a visual storytelling device for each brew and were deployed to social media to promote the launch.
Our Approach
To create the Prairie Pirate character we drew inspiration from the Old West. The result was a rugged and mysterious outlaw that traveled across the Prairies on a beat-up steam locomotive, robbing and brewing as he went. We used a gritty, textured illustration style to add character to the beer labels and to create a vintage feeling consistent with the theme.
Another aspect of the Prairie Pirate series was to develop a line of apparel. We created a series of concepts sketches that paired traditional western and brewery imagery. The top designs were then refined for screen-printing and the result was a gritty line of apparel, consistent with the Prairie Pirate beers.
