Test Lab Brewery have a story to tell through the craft of their beer. Each can forming the next chapter in an ongoing science fiction saga, and they partnered with Imagic to bring this genius "beer meets book club" idea to life! <cue: evil scientist laugh and flash of lightning>
Collaborating with 'Mad Nige', aka 50% of the client team, we story-lined the release of thirteen beers - the first four being our core characters for this exciting narrative journey. The hero, Gav - a pale alien. The anti-hero, Stu a night watchman from Nelson. The master, and Test Lab mad scientist, Professor Nigel Beerstein. And the rebel - Bitta Froot, the lab rat. These first four label artworks would set the brand personality for many cans to come, so our creative team did a deep dive into the genre vaults - going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole filled with old comic tropes and occasionally giant radioactive bunnies with lasers. As I write this, some of those creatives are still down there; the rabbit holes are deep.
While the label artwork was brewing, the Imagic studio created a ‘classic car badge meets schlock sci-fi movie’ logo lock up that any self-respecting hazy-drinking, Chevy-loving Trekkie would be proud to sport on their futuristic tunic. Next, we designed a wrap for The Test Lab Tanker - easily the coolest truck in the South Island.
What Test Lab has now is an engaging (and quirky) brand package housed in a website framework with shopfront, which is the home to monthly chapter releases. And as the story unfolds with tasty beer after tasty beer, it tells the tale of what happens deep in the test lab when you let the lunatics run amok amongst the hops.
