Anderson Design Group: Blog: Fat Bottom Brewing Co. Packaging and Posters

It's time for us to pin-up our latest packaging design (pun intended.) We worked on branding for Fat Bottom Brewery a couple years ago, starting with the logo art, which evolved into having a unique female character to match the personality and flavor profile of each beer. Fat Bottom founder Ben Bredeson has worked very hard to build the brewery into a true Nashville original. His East Nashville brewing company and tap room has been kicking booty ever since it opened over 2 years ago. Today, demand has increased to the point where he needs to start packaging his 2 most popular flavors for sale in stores.

After requesting as many samples as we could justify (for research and inspiration, or course,) we asked our in-house illustrator and designer Aaron Johnson to retool all the character art to better fit the vertical format of a beer can. While we were at it, we added a couple new characters for the ever-growing lineup. From the beginning, our challenge with this branding scheme has been to create a nostalgic American vibe that conveys old-fashioned craftsmanship and good times. With that in mind, we set out to render character art that looked like the pin up girls featured on World War II airplanes. Our stylized women needed to be fun, sassy, and unique—sensual, but not inappropriate—just the kind of girl that would give a soldier a reason to stand proudly, work hard, celebrate the good times, and hurry home after serving his country with honor.

Once all the pin up girls and flavor logos were updated, we began creating a branding scheme for a 5-color can and a 4-pack box.

The cans would be sold individually, and as a 4-pack in a cardboard box. So the can art had to communicate no matter which way it was turned on the store shelf. A bold color was worked into the background overlaid by a pin up girl resting on top of the Fat Bottom logo which was set over the flavor name.

Once the aluminum can designs were finalized, we created a packaging concept that would allow each square box to be stacked or displayed in a number of ways so stores could create different scenes or even an entire wall of Fat Bottom Girls.

After the master packing concept was figured out, we hammered out the box designs for 2 different flavors—Ruby Red and Knock Out IPA. The beer boxes quickly became collector’s items—now avid Fat Bottom fans can build their own beer box walls or Fat Bottom Fortresses. (Just think of the possibilities!)

These swanky 4-packs can be seen on shelves in grocery stores around Nashville.

With seven character designs finished, we asked Aaron to create a poster series that is now a part of the Spirit of Nashville Collection. (We are always adding new Nashville-themed prints that celebrate Music City’s unique history and charm.) These lovely 18" x 24" and 11" x 14" prints are available for purchase on our site.