Responses by Tom Lane, creative director, Ginger Monkey Design.
Background: Doc Brown Farm & Distillers is a startup based in Georgia making bourbon from heirloom Jimmy Red corn, which it farms, mills, ferments and distills. It’s a family business set up by Amy Brown, Paige Dockweiller and Daniel Williams in 2019. In 2020, the three approached us to help them create a visual identity and packaging system that reflects its unique way of doing things.
Design thinking: We spent a lot of time talking to Amy and researching everything important to the Doc Brown business, discussing how it would be positioned in the market. Strong family values, responsible agriculture, deep roots in Georgia, the founders’ faith, their use of a traditional variety of corn that has nearly died out—all these things set them apart.
We settled on the word heirloom as an organizing thought. The visual expressions and copy all stem from this. Doc Brown draws upon its past to create something for the future.
Challenges: We created the brand typography and imagery and started work on the packaging long before the bourbon itself would be ready. This meant there was a lot of time to consider and question every creative decision. We hoped to use bespoke bottle designs, but costs spiraled during the COVID-19 pandemic. While waiting for the signature bourbons Effie Jewel and Uncle Bogue to reach their peak, we helped Doc Brown launch four flavored bourbon cream liqueurs, giving them a revenue stream and warming consumers up for the main product lines.
Favorite details: The hand-drawn script on the labels is something I put a lot of time into, honing and crafting it a bit like how Doc Brown makes its bourbon. I wanted the lettering to be flowing, evocative and full of personality, as though these could be signatures. It’s playful, reflecting the values of the brand. I hope it sits well on the bourbon shelf but also steps away from some of the tropes ubiquitous in that market.
New lessons: We’ve been very lucky with this project. Amy, Daniel and Paige have shared a lot of information with us about how the business has progressed. We’ve learned a huge amount about how bourbon is made; what demands and challenges new distilleries face; and what retailers, distributors and regulators expect from a product and its packaging. Amy has included us in the product development process because Doc Brown takes its brand integrity seriously. Together, we’re shaping ideas for future products and how to market them.
Visual influences: Sometimes the simplest things are the most inspiring. Images Amy sent us of the sun rising over a cornfield chimed with the radiance pattern in the background on an old silver dollar that has become a Doc Brown family heirloom. This conjured images of Lady Liberty and what she represents—equality, freedom, tolerance and opportunity. She appears in the brand’s pictorial mark surrounded by farm items, in high heels. Two of Doc Brown’s founders are women, and “high heels and cornfields” is part of the company ethos—honoring and celebrating women in the bourbon industry. All these different images and ideas are connected.
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