Since The Great Canadian Beer Fest was this past weekend, and The Hoyne Brewing Company made its public debut at last year’s beer fest, we decided it would be a good time to share a little bit about our history and working process with this fantastic brewery.

We’d had the good fortune of getting to know the man behind the beer while he was brewmaster at The Canoe Brewpub in downtown Victoria. Seeing as the beer there was terrific, and we  were working frequently with former brewpub manager Shane Devereaux (the man behind Habit Coffee), we took a lot of “business” meetings in the brewpub, and on the incredible Canoe patio. Mr. Hoyne himself would frequently stop by our table to say hi, give us a taste of whatever he’d been working on, and get a peek of whatever we were working on. During these frequent run-ins, we developed a friendly rapport and a mutual respect for each other’s work. When the time came for Sean to leave Canoe in search of a project he could call his own, he asked us to sit down with him. It didn’t take long to realize that we had a similar approach to work, and a similar passion for what we do.



Our first official “business” meetings with Sean started long before any of the brewing began. We started with loose conversations about what we liked and didn’t like, and about how Sean wanted people to feel when they saw one of his beers. It was a tough “brief” if you could call a 2 hour conversation a “brief”: he wanted his brand to be expressive and exciting, playful and imaginative, but also somewhat formal and able to hold its own at a black-tie event.

Designing a logo was only one small part of what we needed to do to get to where we needed to go. We kept the logo simple and classic (with a bit of a hand-made feel as a nod to Sean’s approach to beer), so that we had room to experiment with the label designs themselves. We wanted to keep the brand as a whole, open to evolution, without losing some standard of consistency, and a timeless overall character.

It took us quite a while, and a lot of walks down dead-end roads before we finally found a style for his labels that could incorporate the wide range of concepts and ideas we were coming up with together. The process generally involved a lot of revisions and iterations, but it always incorporates a few specific elements:

1. A heavy emphasis on unique and expressive typography.
2. Imagery with a narrative character.
3. A combination of hand-drawn and digitally manipulated graphics.

From the beginning, our entire process with Hoyne has been face-to-face, close-knit, and very personal. The down-to-earth nature of the business is emphasized by the fact that Sean’s primary business partner is his wife Chantal, who handles almost everything about the brewery that doesn’t involve making beer. Given our own familiarity with running a marriage/business partner operation, we know that relationships of this kind can be more challenging than cut-and-dry business relationships. However, we find that working with genuineness and honesty yields work that reflects real emotion and as a result, is more compelling for an audience.

Usually, Sean begins by deciding on what type of beer he wants to brew (sometimes based on his past experience, sometimes based on current experimentation in his top secret beer laboratory). From there, we work together to generate ideas and concepts for naming and illustrating the beer. Sometimes our inspiration comes from the specific type of beer or its brewing process, sometimes it comes from anecdotes or personal experiences (for example, “Devil’s Dream” is one of Sean’s favorite old fiddle tunes), and sometimes it just materializes out of thin air.

After establishing a name and a general direction, we start to develop ideas for the artwork. This involves making lots of sketches that consider imagery, typography, and narrative in equal measure. This is where we get to play, and out of dozens of small sketches we often end up with a whole lot of ridiculous and/or terrible ideas, and only a few actual label candidates. The sketch from which we start to create finished artwork is almost always chosen by consensus, and believe it or not, by the time we hit on something that’s going to work, we all know it. We find that its only by developing lots of different concepts for each beer, that we’re able to find one that really works. In the future, we may be able to whittle down this process a bit, but it’s really enjoyable, so we’re happy rolling with it for now.

To create the final label artwork, we gather whatever image references may be necessary for us to produce the different elements of the artwork and we begin to draw it out on paper. We think even the smallest details play a big role in the overall piece, so we work at a scale that’s much larger than the final product, enabling us to include as much detail as we feel is necessary. The final drawings often go through a revision process, along with the typography, which always starts out by hand as well.

Once we’re happy with the handwork, we scan it, or digitally photograph it, so that we can start manipulating it in the computer. We add colour, additional texture, combine the drawings with photography (if necessary), and we create the final typographic layouts before placing the file onto the print template and adding all of the technical details (barcode, liquor-board details, write-up, etc.). Often, the digital manipulation stage is as labour intensive as the handwork stage, as we spend lots of time making sure that colors, composition, and the final details come out just right.

While there is a relatively consistent overall process for developing each label, we try not to get stuck in doing things a specific way, and let concept for each beer dictate the style in which it’s executed. This fluid and evolving process ensures that each label is unique, while the fact that they’re produced by the same group in the same way of thinking, ensures that they’ll be at least somewhat recognizeable as being part of the same brand.

In just under a year, Hoyne has established itself as a significant force in Victoria’s microbrewery landscape. Sean and his team’s focus on producing the highest quality product and supporting it with great service and a strong emphasis on design, certainly won’t hurt its chances at continued growth! With their passion, integrity, and creativity Sean and his team consistently prove themselves to be among our favorite clients and collaborators. We’re incredibly excited about our next year of working together!

There are a couple more brews in the making, and we hope you’re as excited as we are to try them out. If you find yourself in the Rock Bay area, you can go visit Sean and the rest of the Hoyne team at the brewery (101-2740 Bridge St.) and pick up (or fill up) a growler or two!

For more info, check out:
hoynebrewing.ca
casteprojects.com

This past weekend marked the launch of a project on which we’ve been working exceptionally hard, the Rifflandia Magazine. This magazine is Rifflandia’s front-line marketing tool, as it’s immaculately produced, and is chock full of in-depth information about the festival, as well as every single performer. It gets distributed all over Vancouver Island and the Vancouver Area, and ends up being the face of the festival leading up to the event itself.

4 years of Rifflandia magazines.

Since this was our first year working on the magazine, and past year’s magazines had been so well done, we felt like we had big shoes to fill! Always up for a challenge, we dove right into the work, and started by asking big questions about structure and content. We had some great discussions with each other and with the Rifflandia staff about what we like and don’t like about magazines in general, and made some decisions about how to build a solid relationship between the magazine’s design, the content, and the character of the festival.

A couple of the magazine’s more expressive graphical elements.

How could we expand on the branding we’d done for the festival so far, and make it work page-to-page? What aspects of past magazines worked well, and why? How could we incorporate functional layout strategies into a vibrant and eclectic creative language? We’re not sure if we found any solid answers, but we found ourselves immersed in a process that required patience, observation, and a whole lot of communication. Through this process we were able to develop a structure for the magazine that allowed us to keep things out of boring territory, without sacrificing consistency.

Designing the grid.

We began by creating an outline for the magazine that would help us to place all of the content (or placeholder content at least) on appropriate pages. In terms of layout, we created a flexible grid-based structure that formalizes the presentation of the magazine’s content without appearing to be dry or repetitive. This turned out to be an effective way of taming the endless problems that arise as new content comes in/changes, created built-in relationships between pages, and made generating new page layouts efficient and enjoyable. While each spread still reads differently and has a different feel, the underlying system, based on classical layout grid design and typographic standards, is actually quite rigid. We wanted to make the whole thing as clear as possible for the reader, so we made sure that our grid allowed us to institute a running footer which included section titles as well as show and venue information for each artist.

Editor Chris Long, and Assistant Editor Bill Farrant fueling up for a long work session.

Once we had established the magazine’s structure, content began to trickle in. As bands were announced, Chris Long (the magazine’s editor), wrangled hundreds of articles from dozens of contributing writers, often giving them a bit of final polish and fact-checking, before they were ready to be seen by thousands of eager Rifflandia magazine readers. Chris also helped gather band promo shots from PR people and worked with us to help choose which photos best represented the band and the festival, not to mention which ones worked best in the context of our working layouts: Does the photo have negative space over which we can place text? Do the colours work with the other photos/elements already on the spread? How much page real estate should be allocated to artist a. compared to artist b.? These were all questions that for which we had to find answers on each and every page of the magazine.

Working on the festival schedule spread.

Text and photos on the grid.

It was no easy task — deadlines got stretched, spreads got changed, content came in and out more than we thought possible. On top of coordinating articles and photography, we were responsible for incorporating ads from local businesses, editorial pieces, and feature sections on festival components (Winlandia!, Artlandia, Festival Fashion, etc.). We also included some creative components for the magazine to generate excitement and engage the readers: the Rifflandia passport and fortune teller. These went from simple concepts to prototypes made from notebook paper to finally being realized as finished products. It was a difficult process trying to harness all of these elements and squeeze them into one place, but the more time we spent doing it, the more efficient our workflow became.

Working on the cutout “fortune teller”.

The “Fortune Teller” in use!

The “Rifflandia Passport” in the magazine.

We saw the magazine go through dozens of iterations, which also meant a lot of time spent waiting for proofs and exchanging content with the festival organizers. As fast and efficient as email might be, we soon realized how quickly our deadline was approaching and how little time we had left - waiting for feedback wasn’t an option. So for the last few days leading up to the final print deadline, we moved our workspace down the street to the Rifflandia Headquarters and set up camp with the rest of the production team for the final push to get the magazine together. In these last days, we saw the magazine go from computer screen to proof and back again so many times it was hard to keep track. Luckily, we had a team of sharp copy-editors, and our tireless executive editor, Casey Austin, to keep everything organized.

One of many “Artist Profile” spreads.

Working on a magazine like this is like standing on the sand inside an hourglass. For a long time, there’s not much happening, the sand shifts around a bit, and you’re slowly, slowly sinking. As you get closer to the print deadline, things start to happen faster and faster, until eventually you’re working in a frenzy. The last few days are a total blur of activity: proofing, changes, page-rearranging, final assembly. The process has its own momentum, and toward the end, there’s not much anyone can do to stop it. Given that you’re running on a few hours sleep a night (if any), it can actually feel like you’re falling.

Making copy edits in the master file.

35-hour stretches in the production office (mostly in front of the computer) can take a toll on your health and your relationships, but at the end of the day when the magazine arrives back from the printers, you get to flip through it and watch others do the same, it’s easy to forget about the struggle and the mountain of effort that went into putting it together.

The printed magazines at the local café (Habit Coffee Chinatown).

The unofficial magazine launch happened last Saturday at the Amelia Street Block Party and will be officially launched tonight (Thursday, Aug 9) night at the Rifflandia Headquarters (517 Pandora Ave). If you’re in Victoria, and you feel so inclined, we’d love for you to come have a look!

The final product with the “Fortune Teller” and “Passport” removed.

A huge thanks to Chris Long, Bill Farrant, Casey Austin, Nick Blasko, Pat Carrico, Deb Rizun, Melanie Ransome, and Lacey Geary for helping to bring the project together.

Finally, the awesome team over at thenumber put together this RifflandiaTV episode about the process, enjoy!