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DANCING SANDS DISTILLERY
BRAND REFRESH
DANCING SANDS DISTILLERY
BRAND REFRESH
Direct Client
Dancing Sands is an independently owned, young but highly awarded distillery in Golden Bay, New Zealand.
I was tasked with doing a brand refresh and creating new packaging designs for their range of Gin products.
PREVIOUS BRANDING
The rebrand moved it from a functional brand with multiple, colourful looks to a cohesive, modern, premium brand with purpose and responsibility at its heart.
This was done by rejecting the old world of celebrating scarcity, heritage and old branding traditions and instead joined an emerging breed of modern premium brands that seek to inspire with a sense of mission, belonging and living in the now.
A vibrant, illustrated look was created, and a new brand asset was born – the Welcome Swallow, found at the natural spring where Dancing Sands takes its name. The creation of this new character allowed the brand to easily switch between delivering messages of provenance, flavours, and ingredients, reducing environmental impact or its wider brand purpose.
The new custom-designed bottles are made from at least 40% recycled glass, and are manufactured domestically, thus eliminating 15,000kg of carbon emissions annually. The labels are printed with non-toxic, soy-based inks on recycled paper and the outer shipping boxes are all compostable.
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CARLTON & UNITED BREWERIES
BRAND
CREATION
Clemenger BBDO Melbourne
Working with Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, we pitched for and won a unique project for Carlton & United Breweries; to entice Australians to re-imagine beer in a whole new way and launch a new fruity beer category.
Three new ‘brands of scale’ were created, each with broad unisex appeal and modern values, with three distinct brand personalities for an emerging audience of drinkers.
My role was both as a creative; conceptualising, naming and building the brands, and as a designer, creating the concept can artwork. Both Sungazer and Mosey were then further refined and launched via brand design consultancy, WhatCameNext_.
MOSEY
- A beer that’s as easy-going as Aussies. Here, I wanted to visually capture the relaxed, default setting in every Aussie to ‘go with the flow’ and enjoy the simple life. This simple repeating wave graphic formed the heart of the design and continued into its final design.
SUNGAZER
- When you feel the sun on your face, everything seems just that little bit better. Sungazer is a beer that harnesses the goodness of the sun to bring you a drink that’s bright, sweet and bursting with sun-ripened fruit flavour. The concept of using the fruit flavour to depict the sun in various Aussie sun-drenched scenes was retained in the final design.
LAUGHING LORIKEET
- It’s not just our sunny skies, but our sunny disposition that imbues Aussie optimism. Having a laugh and seeing the lighter side can help more than we realise. Laughing Lorikeet is a drink that embodies the Aussie way of looking at things with a half glass full approach.
Unfortunately, this brand didn’t get to spread its wings in the real world, but I had a lot of fun drawing the cheeky character.
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BUNDABERG RUM
PACKAGING DESIGN
Leo Burnett Sydney
With over 125 years of history, Bundaberg Rum is an Australian legend. But in 2015, it had become a bit stale. We needed to create a campaign that would reiterate Bundy’s status as a cultural icon but also make our can fun and relevant for a new generation of Aussie drinkers. We decided to honour our fellow Aussie legends, by handing over our famous can. We called it ‘Cheers to a legend’.
11 legends were chosen & their face was emblazoned on a can. Or rather, two cans. Aussies were asked to cheers those cans to complete a face. Scan it using the Bundaberg app & you’re instantly delivered the tale of that legend’s life. But folklore was never meant to be factual. And that’s why you can also mash legends together, creating new legends, such as Magda Cash, a Wimbledon-winning comedienne or Phar Kelly, a bank-robbing racehorse. In total there were 121 possible legends.
This project also involved me creating 121 different storyboards from stock imagery.
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BUNDABERG RUM
PACKAGING DESIGN
Leo Burnett Sydney
In 2013, the worst flood in Queensland’s history devastated the city of Bundaberg, displacing thousands. The region desperately needed an economic boost following the disaster, so Bundaberg Rum decided to use its name to get visitors back. In short, we would turn a disaster zone into a tourist destination. We staged a special relaunch of the rum called ’Road to Recovery’. Each bottle was labelled with the name of a flood-affected street. The bottles were only available from the distillery and the campaign brought thousands to the town. All profits from sales went towards flood relief.
We used the actual street map of Bundaberg as our recurring design idea. This featured on limited edition packaging, special die cut posters and a print campaign encouraging people to visit Bundaberg again.
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BUNDABERG RUM
PACKAGING DESIGN
Leo Burnett Sydney
In 2015, Diageo approached us with a bold idea for a high-end brand loyalty program. Members would have access to exclusive rums, a blending kit and various other benefits. It would appeal to Bundy's most fervent adorers – soon to the known as ‘Rumbassadors’. In addition to naming the program, we named the rum variants, designed the bottles and blending book and devised many of the program benefits.
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The best thinning sheers aren’t
DECEMEBER 2020
At Northern Hair we have many secrets; perhaps our darkest: we use children’s safety scissors instead of thinning sheers 😱! It’s true. These pint size clippers have layered some of Hollywood’s top tresses. We prefer a brand called Twee (we’d link it but we’re afraid of being put on a list).
How to deal with difficult clients
APRIL 2021
Never admit defeat. Never. Even if you full-on fucked up that head — therapize them and offer unmitigated reassurance. Talk that asymmetrical miscalculation, all the way to the receptionist — all the way to their car if you have to (pro tip number 6 can come in handy here). Oh and as a preemptive measure, get yourself an understudy. Actually, train a bevy of understudies and get ready to pawn off those fussbudget clients.
If you can, take up gardening as a hobby
MARCH 2021
Obviously not every budget allows for a backyard Bomarzo — potted plants are fine here. Pruning flora is just a practical practice for us professional groomers. It’s like thinking of war in a time of peace.
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BULLEIT WHISKEY
‘ANTI-
ESTABLISHED’
Leo Burnett Sydney
From the moment Bulleit whiskey was first distilled, it was a whiskey made differently: in small batches, with a special recipe, a unique taste and a truly independent spirit. The brand is proud of how it differs from more famous counterparts. This led us to create the positioning ‘Anti-Established’, shown in this ad. It captures the way Bulleit has always broken with convention, with an ethos that rejects easy, cheap methods in favour of considered, crafted ones.
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TOURISM TASMANIA
‘COME DOWN FOR AIR’
BRAND PLATFORM
BMF
‘Come down for air’ was a creative platform that we developed for BMF and Tourism Tasmania - to lure stressed out city folk South, to the Apple Isle.
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APPLE
‘FIRST DANCE’
TBWA Sydney
With marriage equality now law, Apple sought to capture the very first dances of same-sex couples in Australia, entirely through the lens of iPhone X. A film was created to document this
historic moment, and this ran nationwide on TV and online.
‘First Dance. Shot on iPhone X' also formed an extensive outdoor campaign, including two hero executions that stood proud over Taylor Square, Oxford St for the 40th anniversary of Sydney's Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.
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BUNDABERG RUM
‘ROAD TO RECOVERY’
Leo Burnett Sydney
In 2013, the worst flood in Queensland’s history devastated the city of Bundaberg, displacing thousands. The region desperately needed an economic boost following the disaster, so Bundaberg Rum decided to use its name to get visitors back. In short, we would turn a disaster zone into a tourist destination. We staged a special relaunch of the rum called ’Road to Recovery’. Each bottle was labelled with the name of a flood-affected street. The bottles were only available from the distillery and the campaign brought thousands to the town. All profits from sales went towards flood relief.
We used the actual street map of Bundaberg as our recurring design idea. This featured on limited edition packaging, special die cut posters and a print campaign encouraging people to visit Bundaberg again.
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SAMSUNG
‘ANOTHER WORLD’
Leo Burnett Sydney
Samsung’s SUHD TV offers a level of picture quality that will make you feel as if you’re inhabiting the characters on the screen. Every channel becomes another opportunity to experience emotion, instead of just observing it. In this commercial we brought this thought to life, depicting the many potential characters that a viewer can immerse themselves in.
