I don't like to use labels but...

Kevin recently entered a home-brew competition sponsored by one of our great local breweries 3 Stars. I felt very strongly, as the self-appointed Chief Marketing Officer of Battery Brewing, that our entries needed some sweet labels.

Sadly the guys did not win, but I'm sure we got special bonus points for style (maybe?). Here is Kevin at the brewery turning in his Chai Tea Wheat Ale called, "Special Tea."

The other beer, headed up by Ed, was "Coco Pow" which was a Coconut Curry Brown Ale. 

I made both labels in Photoshop with some doodles that Kevin and I quickly whipped up. 

We took them to FedEx/Kinkos for laser printing (helps keep the ink from running if the bottle gets condensation on it) and Kevin used rubber cement to glue them on on our way to the brewery for drop off. Several people walked by as he was doing this and gave us very suspicious looks…

Ok, here's one more artsy glamour shot of the bottles. 

Battery Brewing T-Shirt Designs

There's nothing more fun than showing up with a large group of people to an event all sporting the same shirt ammiright?! This will be our fourth year taking on the Dogfish Dash, held in Milton, Delaware at the Dogfish Head Brewery. We've done shirts before, but since the size of our team has grown, we decided to upgrade!

I've done a lot of work over the past few years to tweak the logo that Kevin originally designed for his home brew label, Battery Brewing. For his birthday this past year, I slapped that logo on alllll sorts of things. So it was an obvious choice for the front of the shirt.

Last year, while drinking in the taproom at Dogfish the day before the race, Kevin declared that he loved running, beer and EVERYONE HEEEEERE! This quickly became our rallying cry, and also maybe a song with jazz hands. So we decided to go with that on the back.

Just for fun, here are some other layouts that I played with while designing the shirts.

We ended up ordering them from Custom Ink which I can't recommend highly enough. The customer service staff were literally in my Top 3 of customer service experiences EVER. So friendly, so helpful, so easy. Love them. 

So yeah, I'll update this when we get some nice group shots, but for now I'm pretty much over-the-moon happy to see almost 20 people wearing my design ;o) To hold you over, here's a group shot of a few of us from 2012 in our old shirts.  

Adventures in Logo Design (AKA Gifts for Homebrewers)

I feel like at this point in my relationship with Kevin, I should be able to write a book on "Gifts for Homebrewers." This year, I decided to get creative and up the ante... customized Battery Brewing swag!

I started with some basics from Zazzle and Cafe' Press like stickers, magnets and a key chain. I designed a lovely poster with some choice pics of the Battery Brewing team in action. Finally I found some specialty shops to order a bartender's bottle opener and, the best part, a dozen custom pint glasses. Ooooh, ahhhhh.

Read more about the team, the logo and the birthday celebration here on the Battery Brewing blog.

Loop Dee Loops

Ok, I'm getting ready to take off for the weekend to the super fun Dogfish Dash in my super cool Battery Brewing t-shirt. But last night as I was procrastinating on paper, I adapted another part of my secret project into another pattern. This one kind of blows my mind (if I'm allowed to say that...)


This was actually taken from a large script, block print "W." I just cropped the loop and started messing around with it.


I love how the blue reads differently on the light green vs. the dark green. Anyways, hope everyone has a great weekend. I'll be back Monday with those fun Team Battery Brewing pics :o)

T-shirts for Race Day

I have to admit, I love wearing matching t-shirts while in a group. Not on like... every occasion... but it is certainly fun. So next weekend we're running in the Dogfish Dash 5K (Kevin is running the 10K because he's a "more serious" runner, ie, he doesn't just run for the clothes) in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware and what could be more fun than t-shirts!?

Kevin designed this logo for his home-brewery, Battery Brewing, and hand-painted the screen. We've been spending time today printing the 8-9 t-shirts for the team. The majority of us live on Battery Lane (it's like Friends, but not), hence "Battery Brewing." I'm pretty sure we're going to look awesome!

Here are some of the t-shirts drying in the dining/craft room. We're going to print "Battery Brewing" on the backs as well. I can't wait to get a picture of all the neighborly matchy-matchiness!