© 2017, Randy Mosher
I recently completed a months-long project to create labels for a new series of beers featuring a variety of tropical fruits. Within the larger range of Cervejaria Colorado labels I began several years ago, we wanted these to hang together and make a little sub-line all their own.
We decided that graceful women’s hands holding the fruit, along with a consistent approach to banners and typography, was a good way to do this. The labels speak for themselves, so there’s not too much I can add. This is all vector work, by the way, so every line, every shadow, is defined by points and curves rather than “painted” in a program like Photoshop.
Cervejaria Colorado was founded a couple of decades ago by Marcelo Carneira da Rocha, a charismatic and energetic pioneer of Brazil’s craft beer scene. When I met him, he was reformulating his business from a brewpub to a production brewery, and I helped him with the labels, combining elements from very early Brazilian historical labels with more modern treatments, creating a hybrid that defined their look ever since. He’s gone on to be a booming success, and late in 2015 was acquired by AB-Inbev for further pursuit of his expansion plans.
The fruit in Brazil is mind-blowing, as you might expect. What we encounter up here as tropical fruit in North America is a pale shadow of the richness, variety and intensity of what’s available closer to the source. People often ask me if I get to taste the beers before making labels for them. For many very good reasons, the answer is almost always no. But in this case, I’m dying to try them, and hopefully I will get a chance before too long.
