Design Better Labels and Packaging - Guest Jillian Noble of Elbongürk Design

Episode Overview

Really excited to chat Label and Package Design with a pro like Jillian. She's got a TON of experience and has done work for some great brands like Central Waters, Omni, and Lagersmith. Whether you are working with designers or doing design yourself, there is a lot to glean from this interview.

Learn more about Jillian and her company, Elbongürk, at www.elbongurk.com

Episode Transcript

(AI-Generated, please forgive any typos)

[00:00:00] Chris: What is up? Welcome to the Get Optimized podcast. This is your host, Chris Overlay, and this is a show all about marketing and growth and growth tactics as it relates to the craft beer industry. And I'm excited to hang out with you guys today. I've got my mic back. If you guys have noticed over the last couple of episodes, probably more than a couple, I've had a weird sounding voice.

And, um, that's because my house has been under construction. So I've had to like change mics and do this sound canceling thing. And it's been a little bit intense. So I'm back. I've got a new office. I've got a new mic. Well, it's my old mic, but it's back. Um, but so my voice sounds a little bit better and I'm going to share an interview with you today.

But before I do that, I want to share a little story about how this came to be. So a few months ago in June, uh, I went to the craft beers, craft beer professionals connects event in Milwaukee and really, really great event. I'm sure many of my listeners are part of CBP. You've heard of the connects events they do is awesome.

Milwaukee is an awesome place for beer. We got to tear the tour, the PBR facility. Uh, drink a lot of great beer and go on a lot of great tours around town. And of course, you know, be part of a really fun event and network and all those kinds of things. But during that event, I met someone named Jillian Noble and we got to talk and we were having a couple of beers or whatever.

And, um, got talking about like nerdy marketing stuff. We're talking about like technical SEO and websites and design and come to find out Jillian actually. Runs her own design house or design creative firm. And we were talking about, so we, so we got onto labels, right. And label design. And, um, she's done a ton of this stuff.

I mean, she's done, she's got over 15 years experience doing designs, uh, lots of beer labels in the mix there. Um, she's, uh, like, you know, some of the, the company she's done labels for, like you probably recognize these like Central Waters, Loggersmith, Omni Brewing. Um, and if you go to their website, elbenkirk.

com, I'll leave it in the show notes. You can see some of their work. Fantastic stuff. Uh, also Jillian is, you know, she has a background as a design teacher. She taught creative design, uh, for, for folks, for people trying to become designers. And it was just so awesome to chat with her. I was like, yo, we need to do a podcast and I need to talk to you about label design.

I think our listeners would love that and would love your opinions on it. And, uh, you know, your, your thoughts on where the industry is going and how to make this process better, you know, how to do all the things better with design, including working with your designers, uh, more efficiently. So had her on the show and that's the interview we're going to have you listen to in just a few moments.

But, uh, yeah, I think that's it. I'm not going to keep rambling here. All I will say is the usual, you know, if you find some value from this interview, please share it with somebody you think. Would get some value from it as well. Also, please go check out the Elbenkirk website It's elbenkirk. com Check out their work and get in touch with Jillian if you need some design stuff done or have questions Like I said, she's amazing.

So, alright, I'll let you get into the interview. Enjoy it. I'll talk soon. See ya All right. What's up, Jillian? Thanks for being here. How you doing? What's, what's 

[00:03:53] Jillian: going on? I'm doing great. I, um, it's Friday here, so I usually try to save Fridays for doing cool stuff like talking on podcasts and writing my own blog posts.

But other than that, just enjoying the fall Wisconsin weather. 

[00:04:09] Chris: Nice. Yeah, I really like to do that kind of stuff on Fridays, too. We've been really busy lately, so I've veered away from it, but usually that's the time to do the email, newsletter, to do the blogs, to maybe crack a beer in the afternoon while you're working, that kind of thing.

Um, but yeah, and Wisconsin Falls is always so cool. So you got the Leafs turn in and 

[00:04:29] Jillian: all that. We had the leaves turning and every Oktoberfest beer locally is available for the 2 PM like slump, if that's, you know, your style, it happens to be mine most of the time, but it's a pretty cool time of 

[00:04:42] Chris: year. Nice.

So are you like totally off the deep end with Oktoberfest, you drink all that you can or do you have a certain one you kind of gear to or you totally avoid it and you're just like, yeah, it's too much. 

[00:04:56] Jillian: Well, now you're going to get me in trouble with my brewery clients, who is my favorite, who's not my favorite.

So I will say I am equal opportunity and Oktoberfest are great. I do tend to like the Martins a little bit better. Um, but I'm excited. I mean, it's fun. Just the sample. So 

[00:05:16] Chris: nice. Yeah, I always, uh, every year I'm like, I drink every kind that I can possibly get my hands on to the point where I'm like, totally sick of them so that it takes a whole year for me to be like, All right, I'm ready for him again.

Same with the pumpkins. All that. Yeah. 

[00:05:32] Jillian: I was gonna say, so all morning you drink pumpkin spice and then in the evenings you can drink, um, Oktoberfest and I think we should rename them Septemberfest because it's, it's kind of a funny thing. Like by October, I'm almost tired of it. Yeah. 

[00:05:45] Chris: Yep. Yeah, definitely.

Uh, and yeah, I had, I had some pumpkin spice stuff this morning in my coffee. So totally in a seasonal guy over here, but anyways, I'm, I'm super grateful for you to jump on and talk with us about. Uh, labels and label design. This is so cool. So interesting and hyper relevant to like every brewery everywhere.

They're all talking about labels doing labels. Um, you do a ton of packaging to you're clearly an expert in this field. So I'm pumped to pick your brain on this stuff. But for those people that don't really know a lot about you, haven't had a chance to look at your website and stuff like that. Tell us about you.

You know, what's your career, what's your background and, uh, how did, how did Albert Elbinger come to be? 

[00:06:29] Jillian: Okay, sure. I would say that I, um, so I studied graphic design in college and I ended up in grad school for it too, which landed me a professor job at a university. And I happily did that for about nine years.

And at the same time, I was running a side business doing design because every designer needs to design, not just talk about designer. So that's my, I guess I shouldn't speak for everybody, but that's how I operate. And in about 2016, I think I had kind of like a, A career, a mid career. I don't know if that was mid yet, but, um, breakdown where I'm just like, what, what am I going to do?

So I actually, I decided to leave the university and do design full time. Um, and in that moment, I was actually took this big contract with Pottery Barn doing Christmas stockings and Goofy Cat printed sheets, basically everything for their teen and kid line, you could imagine, and that was so cool, but, um, it was such a, such a crazy production schedule that I got a little burnt out.

And then my brother, who is, um, Oh, man. Who's been in beer sales in the Twin Cities area in Minneapolis. Um, knew a couple breweries that were looking for branding help and he had someone to ask and so I started out with just one or two and that was in 2016 or so and since then it's been my niche. I've learned a lot.

I've met tons of printers, cool brewers, breweries, beer drinkers and now it's like 90 percent of what I do. So Hopefully that's a short enough story. I, I can talk about it forever, but it's, it's kind of a, you know, way I, way I entered. So, 

[00:08:12] Chris: no, that's awesome. Uh, yeah, I think there's like this adage that is, you know, if you can't, if you can't do teach, you know, something like that, but you totally are breaking down that completely because you've taught and you do, and your philosophy is like, you know, if you're going to.

If you're gonna talk about design, you gotta be designing so you, so you stay sharp and all that. So definitely that adage doesn't apply to you. Um, and yeah, I mean, it's cool that you went to the, you, you were, were teaching the university. I mean, I mean, how long ago was that, you know, when you were, were teaching 

[00:08:45] Jillian: so you're aging me out here.

Um, anyway, now I started right outta grad school. Um, and it was, so 2007, I think. And I was there until like 2016, so it was nine years, it was, I got out of the school that had like the NASAD accreditation, which is a very fancy way of saying that some, some team that was, I don't even know who sanctions them comes in and reviews and make sure that the design program is legit.

So that was pretty cool. I mean, the students were pretty serious and it was fun to be around so many young people so excited about doing the thing that I really, I mean, I think that's what made me want to go back and dedicate time to doing the thing again. Got 

[00:09:30] Chris: it. The reason I asked that is I wasn't Trying to age you out.

And I realized a lot of 

[00:09:37] Jillian: experience, 

[00:09:39] Chris: but I was curious because this is one thing like design moves quick. You know, we have all this different technology and now like fast forward to today, literally it's AI is involved in all these things. You know, you've seen, you know, the changer, I mean, in 2016, correct me if I'm wrong, you know, like that was.

Before the subscription to Adobe software, you had to buy the whole software. It was hundreds of dollars or whatever. And now you just pay 50 bucks a month to have everything in that. And now you pay the subscription and so much has changed over that time. Is there anything that stands out along the way?

You're like, man, it's, you know, rewind the clock 10 years, totally different than it is now. What are those things? 

[00:10:20] Jillian: Oh, here you go again. Um, well, I remember distinctly in college Illustrator didn't have a transparency yet. And so if you wanted to have transparency, you had to do it like alpha channels in Photoshop.

So that was a big change. And then yes, you're right buying like CS4 you bought like, I mean, I was buying commercial packages at that point because I was running like commercial projects, but I still have the disc pack. It doesn't work anymore. And I don't have a computer that has a disc drive, but it feels like an important trophy.

Let's see what else changed 

[00:10:54] Chris: as a trophy, like frame it or something like that. It's like, that's your, that's your experience. If anybody asks, like, yeah, this is how 

[00:11:00] Jillian: that needs. So I'm remodeling my office now. So I'm hoping I kind of bring it. So you can't, I mean, it doesn't, it looks great. Nobody, nobody, nobody on the podcast can see it, but Chris could see it anyway.

So, um, yeah, it needs a shadow box somewhere. I think just to show. Um, and this AI stuff, I, I've been keeping up with what's happening. I think it's interesting, a little bit scary for all of us. How can we use it as a tool? How is it going to change what we do? I think it's still in its infancy, so that's yet to be determined.

Um, exactly. So. I'm watching. That's 

[00:11:37] Chris: a fascinating thing. And I'm going to go down this tangent right now. I made a note. I was like, Oh, man, we'll talk about this in a second. But since we brought it up, um, you know, I think this is also on the forefront of people's minds is, is how is AI going to impact what we do?

You know, at the tactical level for businesses, you know, cause it's one thing I see these things on Instagram. I see this stuff where it's like, they've turned Jack black into Disney princesses and stuff like that. And it's like, okay. So when you unpack that though, it's like, there's this debate about, you know, You know, trademark and likeness and ownership of that asset, but then also the capabilities of these things, like even within Photoshop and those who don't know, aren't super tech savvy into the program of Photoshop or illustrator.

Like I'll try to explain it and you, you correct me, but there's a way that you can tell it to basically. Generate pieces of an image based off of only part of it. So you could generate a background. You can generate shapes and let all this stuff that's in there. And it's kind of groundbreaking this stuff.

I mean, how do you feel about AI? Are you, are you nervous? Are you scared? Do you think it's Terminator taking us over or do you think it's a useful tool? 

[00:12:45] Jillian: All of the above. I mean, I, so I think right now, and there are people that spend a lot of time, you know, researching this, working in this, and I'm sure they could prove me.

Like very unskilled and AI at this moment, but my experience so far is that if it's very specific content, say, I want Jack Black and a Disney princess. Those are very widely available as things that have been fed into the Internet. I can easily imagine that turning out. Like super. If I want something very specific, so let's say that a brewery wanted a label and they wanted like frozen hop cones going down like a tundra stream and you know a pirate ship in the back and then it needs to be raining blueberries, you try that in AI and see what it comes up with.

Because I just for kicks, like sometimes I take a project brief and put it in there and just there we go. 

[00:13:36] Chris: And I'm happy 

[00:13:37] Jillian: that we're all. Yeah, and I mean, it comes up with some really wild stuff like it. I'm pretty sure that the generator I used the most recently didn't know what a hopcone was, and so it will learn that.

And so over time, this gets better and better. But at this time, if I needed Jack Black as Cinderella on a can label, I think that It might be a very useful tool. 

[00:13:57] Chris: Yeah, you know, and it's the inputs. It's what is the AI reading to generate that image. And, uh, yeah, it's pretty nuts. You know, um, I think we're, we're not quite figuring it out yet, but it's only getting better.

These machines are getting smarter. And who knows, you still need someone in the mix to, to, you know, put their artistic opinion on it to, you know, sometimes you generate these images and like, they have like animals that have six legs that only should have four and weird stuff, you know, like, okay, we, we definitely the artist is absolutely still relevant here.

But, um, Who knows what's gonna happen with this stuff? Let's talk beer a little bit. Um, you said your, your brother was into sales, uh, into beer sales, kind of got you into the industry. And now you've been doing labels, you've been doing packaging. Um, yeah, tell us about some of the, some of the projects you've worked on.

I mean, you know, over the years, anything stood out as like, yeah, this was a really cool project. And, and why was that? 

[00:14:56] Jillian: Yeah, I think that, I mean, My very first brewery I got connected with was Omni Brewing out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, actually, one of the western suburbs. And they were only three years old at that point.

And like many breweries, they had kind of started up on their own and were doing as much as they could with what they had, you know, so they had like a bartender that had some design skills kind of helping them with labels, but they weren't in distribution yet. And so my role in that was to kind of take them to that next step.

Like, how do we Go from being like a pilot project, if you will, like to see if this has an audience has legs. People like our beer to now we look like a official brewery. And so they've been around now since right around that 2016. That's pretty much my turning point. And at this point, they have two locations and, and right now in Minneapolis, Minnesota has some interesting liquor laws, so they also had to, I shouldn't say had to, got the opportunity to start a winery to open up a second location, but I'd say I learned so much working with that group because they took it from, like I say, just some Some simple sort of self generated stuff all the way up to, I mean, some of the projects we sent painted cans to Ball and they were able to order the truckloads, you know, so we did, this is where I'm super nerdy, so stop me Chris, I'm in the two in the weeds, the PSL labels, we've done shrink sleeves, we've done digital printing, we've done painted through Ball, we've 12 pack cartons, case trays, standees, and I think that that experience was very lucky for me to get in with someone that, I mean, had.

The groundwork laid for a really great experience. And then over the course of, I guess, eight years now, they've really built it into something that is continuing to grow and who knows they could have more locations. I wouldn't be surprised. 

[00:16:51] Chris: No, I'm glad you brought that up. I had a note to talk about the, you know, different cans and all the things that are happening on that.

For instance, you know, we talk about AI and an illustrator technology, but the technology is changing on what can actually be printed and how it can be printed. And that impacts design. Right? 

[00:17:13] Jillian: Right. For sure. I mean, it definitely impacts what can be printed. But I mean, I think at every level, Yeah. The resourcing goes into what's your production timeline, what's your quality and quantity of your run, um, how many can you warehouse, when will you need them by, what's your storage capacity.

I think that, um, the quality issue is coming up now because digital printing is super exciting. There's more and more coming online. It feels like every day. That's not quite true, but there's definitely opportunities for people to get cans that look very good, turned around very quickly, um, and they suddenly now can print things that were difficult to print on painted cans.

So, um, when I say painted, it's official silkscreen. It's like what you think of when you think of the big brands. That's what, you know, anybody that is in the household name probably has painted cans. And but the art is limited. The shapes are limited because the colors have to be basically stamped on as opposed to sprayed on like a printer.

So now that we have digital printing, you can have Any sort of whatever art you want. There isn't a limitation in terms of what what you want it to look like. So, you know, not to name any names, but if you wanted a unicorn with a cat and shooting Skittles out, that's very hard to do on a painted can. It's very easy to do on a digital can provided you have an artist that.

Specializes in such type artwork. So hopefully that's not not too leading, but 

[00:18:53] Chris: no, uh, I think it's, I think it's a great point. Um, and you see it, you know, when you're looking at cans on shelves, like, oh, wow, that one's really intricate and unique. And these things pop out, you know, like other things. I think you're Alluding to, to, or the effects that happen with these cans, you can plan for metallic effect.

You can have matte effects. You can do these different things with, with the label that turn it from just like a, you know, not just a drawing. It's not really the right way to put it, but like, you know, a drawing to now there's almost a three dimensional element to this thing and meanwhile, the demand for uniqueness and coolness and, you know, all these things to stand out on the shelves, um, is only getting.

Bigger. So the two are feeding each other. I imagine here. Um, but yeah, I mean, do you, do you think about that when you're making it, when you're designing something is like, okay, what, how is this thing going to be printed? That impacts your, your design flow, right? Like what you're thinking about doing with the label, right?

[00:19:54] Jillian: Yeah, I'd say there's, you know, the flow chart for me would start with, is this like a big established brand that they already have? This is typically how they'd run this. Or is this a brand that has Maybe experimented with some things, but isn't fully committed to the process and that's where I mean, I can't speak for everybody for my practice.

I actually get pretty involved. And what type of printer you're going to go with, and that goes back to that idea of, you know, how many cams are in this run, how much time in advance would you know, can you store any, um, you know, because there's just different ways to approach it and then I can decide like how cool we can go, you know, you can do metallics on this time, this time and this time, but you can do other options this way and the price points.

I mean, every brewery is going to have a budget they want to hit. And some are bigger and some are smaller. And I pretty firmly believe that if they can be honest with me about what their budget is, I can try to find the best solution for that, that will make them happy in that moment. And you know, if they have bigger aspirations, cool, they know where that.

The goalpost is and let's try to sell enough beer to get there next time. So 

[00:21:05] Chris: yeah, that's an excellent point to is, is having that conversation and open, transparent conversation because there's all sorts of stuff you can do. But what's your budget? What's realistic? And how do we make the most of that budget is, is ultimately what you're saying.

And, uh. Do you think that there's, is that common you think in the design industry, you know, out there that somebody takes that much time to, to go through that piece of it and be involved with the printer aspect of it? Or is that, is that an unfair question to ask what you think of, of other designers?

[00:21:41] Jillian: Yeah, I'm feeling a little like I think people would have to speak to that on their own. I mean, I think that. This is something I developed outside of anybody's recommendation on this. So I imagine other designers maybe think there's a little bit, like one of the things that I do specifically is I try to get as many relationships with printers as I can.

Um, that works two ways. It's one that even yesterday, um, I sent a can out for sampling and it arrived at the brewery and they were surprised at the result. Like something maybe got lost in translation. So they sent the picture to me. And I panicked, you know, because like what happened and but here's where I'll go like I will look at the file I sent double check that it was what we wanted.

I've got tons of experience sending me the specific printer, making sure I hadn't missed something that I will call their pre press. And then I will call their production artist. And then if I have to, I will call their, their owner. And none of that's angry. I'm not angry with any of these people. I'm just like, you know, Hey, you know, uh, Bill, you know, this, this, this can for this brewery.

Like I just, what's up with this? And typically their production artist will call me back and she'll just be like, Hey, Hey, let's work on this together for a couple of minutes and just see what happened. And I feel like that is something that. You won't find everywhere. I mean, to bring the typical flow. I think the brewery would probably maybe they'd yell at their designer.

Maybe they'd call the printer. But the fact that I want to fix it, but I want to fix it by working with my friends at the print shop. So 

[00:23:18] Chris: well, you're uncovering another aspect of this too. And there's just layers to it that on one hand, there's what. The, the original designers doing say you in this, in this metaphor, this, this example, you're designing the label, the initial art, but then that has to be handed over to someone who's going to actually action it, put it into the printer and that file stuff happens to it, you know, there's, there's layers that are, there's different effects applied throughout the process, someone's hands.

Are on that file and somebody, and something can get lost in translation. It's like, oh, I thought you wanted to do the metallics here, or we want to do this at the label or the color is slightly off or whatever, and there's all these things that happen and without communication, you know, assumption is the mother of all F ups, right?

So all of a sudden. Bam. And what would be terrible is now you've got thousands of these cans for the wrong way. So you've gotten out ahead of it. And maybe that's inspiration enough for, for anybody doing labels to say, have a conversation with the printer to make sure this stuff is actually coming through correctly.

And the way that you want it before it, it gets to the point where now you're SOL, right? 

[00:24:25] Jillian: Yeah. I mean, I, I will advocate and I almost to the point of. Like, let's not do this if you're not going to do a sample. So if you don't have enough time in your timeline to do a prototype, there would be a different decision making for me.

Like I, unless this is a can, that's very much like everything else we've ever done that I can say probably, not guaranteed, but probably it'll go okay. I would say let's go a different route. You know, that we know will let's not experiment with, you know, the metallics and the different coatings and the embossing.

And this is not the moment for it. And so I think a good portion of my my work is education. I mean, tons and tons of breweries already know quite a bit. You know, they've been in the game a long time. They've worked with lots of printers. They can talk about those things. But I do think that there's always like the what the designer perspective is like I'm not thinking about necessarily what you're thinking about.

I'm thinking about these issues that could pop up that could delay, you know, blowing budgets, blowing timelines. And well, that's really And hey, everybody's concerned about 

[00:25:34] Chris: right, any of the designers that are listening to this podcast. Yeah, that's a quick way to get fired. You know, it's not even your fault, right?

Like, that came out wrong. I could see, you know, someone taking holding the bag for that. And it's like, well, you know, really, it wasn't me. It was this other thing, but Guess what? The client doesn't care. They want the end product to be right. Um, and sometimes they don't see it that way. I run into that kind of stuff with marketing too.

It's like, well, you know, there's all these other factors that may be impacting the success and growth of your business that I don't have a hand in, but. You know, oftentimes the marketing agency gets left holding the bag and, and fired, you know, at least in my career, it's, it's been that way. So, uh, not, not, not for me personally, but, you know, never, of course not.

No, 

[00:26:18] Jillian: you know, I, I mean, I agree with you, the person that's at the end of the line. Is typically the one left holding the bag. And so I think in the, in like the creative things, you know, part of my job is reading people's minds as is yours, you know, how do we create this thing that they have a vision for a passion for it has actually a physical representation, but it's not very visible, you know, and how to make that what they want, but then there's.

Which I'm happy to do. I will draw all day frozen hop cones going down a river with a sunset and it's raining blueberries. I 

[00:26:55] Chris: sent some PTSD from whatever this frozen hop cone blueberry thing is. This is just, this 

[00:27:00] Jillian: is just, Well, and that's just it. Like, I think that, I hate to go back to the CI thing, but just for a second, I think that that's probably the biggest barrier right now, is that in order to get what you want out of it, You have to be able to very accurately explain what you want and what style you want and how you want it to a computer that you have no idea how it thinks or I don't really know how computers think.

But, um, so I imagine like a brewery owner could spend quite a bit of time guessing. You know, to get that vision out of their head. So I will go back to where was I? I'm on a tangent now. Sorry. No, 

[00:27:36] Chris: you're good. Um, we talked a lot about process. Uh, you know, I want to kind of talk about your opinions on on a few things.

Uh, you know, since you're such an experienced designer, something you talked about earlier about Omni and in their transition to a more established brand. I want to ask you want to unpack that a little bit. Like what? What is the difference between a brand that is not because when you look at the omni packaging, right?

I'm looking at it on your website, and I encourage those folks. I'll put the website in the show, and I should go take a look at it. But when you look at this packaging, like it looks like a legit brand. If you could use air quotes on that. But what is that that looks legit? Can you define it? Like, what is the difference between that and I made it in my garage?

It looks that way. Like, are there points that change it, uh, and elevate it there? Cause I get asked that question too. It's like, we want to be, we want to look like, or, or this it's like, okay, well, what does that even look like? How do you even make that? What are the, what are the, what are the points, right.

That, that change you into a legit brand. 

[00:28:39] Jillian: Yeah. I think that that goes back to sort of the basics of what they would. Teach in design school. So, for example, things like consistency across messaging, consistency across your visuals, um, thinking about your so when people say brand, I think that they have trouble.

Sometimes understanding what that means. You have a logo, you have products, you have a building, but your brand is something bigger than that. Your brand is the personality. So I think that really getting some of the major deciding. People. Um, and great. If you can throw a designer in there with some experience to help you figure out what that big personality is.

And then what are the major components of that brand? And so parts of that come out. The logo comes out when you talk about your products. Like, what do you specialize in? And is there a way to sell that into the product line while still giving them a lot of play? I mean, clearly craft beer is one of those areas that.

Yeah. Needs more razzle dazzle to get attention on the shelf because there's so much competition out there But I think that one thing I will preach is that once you've established brand Consistency consistency consistency, you don't have to have the same can a hundred times over But you have to have some things that build familiarity with your audience and your audience are your beer drinkers You know, you want them to be able to walk into the liquor store and without trying very hard pick out your section And then on top of that, you want new people who don't have a clue what your brand is be like, Whoa, hey, this is interesting.

So you've got those two things to balance. So, 

[00:30:17] Chris: yeah, yeah. The consistency piece is huge. You want to reduce the cognitive load on people. They got enough to deal with, you know, they've got kids, they've got work. They've got, you know, the latest trends on TikTok and Instagram. They're thinking about they want to have an easy brain activity when they go into the store and pick out your brand.

But like you said, For the new folks that haven't experienced it, you got to catch their eye. Is there anything that comes to mind for you that's like, that works for that? I mean, what, what helps a package or a label stand out on the shelves? 

[00:30:51] Jillian: Oh, there's two sides of that coin. Um, so far, I would say that If what you're putting out there, the style of beer, um, is, if that's hidden, people have a lot of trouble.

So people know they like IPAs, or they know they like some of these sours that are coming out, or the, you know, whatever they happen to be. If they can't tell from your can... What it is, it's going to be really hard. The second part of that is that you really have to grab their attention. And I know that there's this, it's like very hard, like how long is a piece of thread?

Like how do you grab somebody's attention when everybody else is trying to also grab their attention? So that's where I think knowing your audience is so important. So that's part of your brand. If you say that, hey, these are the people that are our typical. Buyers or visitors to our tap room. You can kind of get a sense, you know, some people, some breweries go so far as this target, you know, people that ride bicycles, you know, and they've got extra bike racks and sell bike jerseys.

And there's some of that, like, why not, you know, find some groups and then the art on the can, the color schemes, the words, the name of the beer can call to that group. And we. People, people are afraid to target because they're afraid it's going to limit, like, we would hate to offend anybody and I will always come back and say we're not going to offend anybody, but when your target audience is people with eyes who like to drink beer, it's really hard to get the attention.

[00:32:22] Chris: Yeah. There's another saying that marketers say, you probably heard it too. It's like, if you target everyone, you target no one, you know, like if everyone is your customer, then no one is. And being, you know, reflective of who your audience is, that doesn't mean that you have to be exclusive. Right? Like you don't, you're welcoming to other folks, but to have a, to have a brand to have a target audience means you got to speak to them and speak in their language, speak in a way that they.

Are going to visually, I don't really speak, but show them something. They're going to be responsive to. And you're saying that is part of the recipe here of standing out as well. You know, show something that is, that someone's going to look at and associate with. If you're a biker and you're into cycling, and then you see a can that's got all these imagery pieces on it, bike, will spokes, whatever on there, then, Oh, wow.

That's gravitating me towards it. And you've got this, I love the point you made about the style. Cause I do that too. It's if I have to like, look, I'm like, well, what kind of beer is that? The label looks cool, but like. I'm into this kind of beer. I'm not going to know. And three seconds of me having to look for it.

I'm like, all right, I'm out next. 

[00:33:24] Jillian: So, no, you're, you're right. Then you'll go back with what you know. And like, you know, you're, I keep bringing up IPAs because there's such a wide variety of them out there, but people have their favorites, but I would say that most of the craft beer drinkers I know like to experiment with some of the other brands, especially the new ones coming out there to spread the love if they could, maybe there's something interesting, but you know, if you, uh, Go pick up the can and what you've actually got is like a quad, like that's going to be maybe not the IPA you're looking for, you know, I feel like somebody who's going to drink a quadruple IPA is would be easier targeted differently than like the easy drinker type.

And so I think this is, uh, I could talk about this all day and I won't unless somebody calls and wants to, but, uh, yeah, I think just like really framing, you know, who. Who makes the most sense? What is still on brand? Because you don't just do something weird every time, but I mean, I think there's a lot of things you can do.

If you know more about your brand and your brewery and where you're trying to go, then if you're just, Hey, I saw a lot of pink on the shelves, let's do more pink, 

[00:34:34] Chris: everyone's doing pink now, you know, Barbie's out. Uh, you know, although the fact is over, uh, but yeah, I don't know. I haven't seen any Barbie beers.

I would, I was expecting something like that. Someone's got to done a Barbie 

[00:34:47] Jillian: beer. Well, I wonder, yeah, I wonder why not. They had such a great marketing campaign. I mean, I know they. They threw the money at the marketing campaign and had this huge budget, but billboards just of Barbie pink as a teaser. And I think that that's a good example for anyone to think of.

Obviously, most people can't operate at that scale. But if you think about the commitment and then what they're getting in return, they are reselling Barbies that nobody's seen since 1965 to today's five year olds because Their parents saw the movie and it's cool 

[00:35:21] Chris: They they probably made a killing off the merch that they I mean, I almost I was this close I almost bought a sweater.

That was the I am ken f sweater because I saw the movie super it's hilarious I saw the movie too. I 

[00:35:32] Jillian: loved it. I saw it twice already. I'm willing i'm i've set up to go a third so 

[00:35:36] Chris: nice uh, so anyways barbie digress, uh, you know, I want to I want to uh ask you kind of a The reverse side of, of, uh, what we've been talking about is because you brought up new brands, new breweries, maybe, maybe you've been around for a little while, but now you're new to the idea of art.

We need to have labels and, uh, you know, more consistent brand, but there's pitfalls out there. There's mistakes that you could make that could cost you lots of money that could cost you your brand. You know, in some cases you enter the market the wrong way. First impression means a lot. Is there anything that.

Stands out to you is like big, you know, warning signs is don't do this, uh, because you're going to shoot yourself in the foot. Uh, from your experience, what can somebody glean from, from you to not do? 

[00:36:25] Jillian: Well, sure. I think we could talk about these on a lot of levels from the macro level, making sure that your brewery name is not infringing on anybody's trademark, because that's the number one thing that's going to cost people a lot of money when they start to get noticed on the shelf that you'll.

So if you wanted to go to market is, you know, The brewery, let's just say, but there's another one and they have. Rights to that name, everything you've ever made has to be changed over. And that's not only a legal cost, but a design cost. Um, so that, um, the same is probably true on your beer names. This is more important.

You know, if you are too close to any of the, probably like the legacy brands, you know, like I wouldn't ever name anything close to something that new Belgium has or Sierra Nevada, you know, the big brands that really have tons of shelf play, but you really shouldn't copy anybody. Um, in terms of, yeah, the design, I think

I'll still stand on the things that I see that don't perform well are the things that Don't necessarily tell people what's in the can and I fight with this because the what I would call There's two types of cans broadly speaking. There is like the Consistent monolithic can think of this as like the core brand for most breweries.

You can tell that there's a very Like tight design scheme usually for those sometimes there's a color change slight but you can tell these are the ones that are in the core and then there's the art can the fanciful can where You, it's all about the art and those are so cool. They get people's attention, but that's where I'm talking about that.

If you, even if I got, you got me across the room, because I really thought this was a cool cam the minute it's a quadruple IPA. It's not that I won't like that. It's that where I am in my life, I quadruple IPA is not a good choice for me. So, you know,

I also think that

maybe. Putting stuff out there that doesn't quite have the level of finish, you know that that can make it look like a mistake I think so Even if like you're doing the design in house to take I mean, let's say you have a great designer That's cool but like if this is something where the brewery is Kind of making their own designs even if they could put it through somebody to make sure that there aren't print errors on the can going out 

[00:39:03] Chris: Spell check.

Uh, you know, that's an important thing. You know, your percentages, your, your, uh, you know, your description, you know, your style, all those things. Just what you're saying. Double, triple, quadruple check it. 

[00:39:18] Jillian: Yeah. I mean, make sure there's nothing like, um, unintentionally offensive on the can, which happens a lot.

Um, I'd also say like, I don't know. I don't know how, how high some breweries are shooting to grow, but if you did want to get to the point, you're going to get your best price point. If you send to ball or the like for these silkscreen cans, I mentioned and during covid ball did this thing where you could used to only have to buy 200, 000 cans of every skewer, my numbers might be a little off, but hundreds of thousands of cans of one variety of one beer and during covid because of all the shipping problems and lots of other stuff, they moved to five truckloads.

So you're talking about like a million cans. And so wow, It's not that high anymore, but what happened is a lot of the breweries that could afford to do it at smaller scale couldn't anymore and move to different, you know, PSL labels, shrink sleeves, digital printing, but your price point is still going to be best and here I am way in the weeds again on those cans and those cans artwork is so strict on what can be printed.

If you look at a big brand can, you know, I don't know what I'm allowed to say and not say, but you can see a little silver line. Around every color on your can. And that's called trapping. And essentially that's how it is. Every ink color they put down, they have to make sure there's enough room that it doesn't bleed into the other color.

So I can't do for the designers out there. Bitmap doesn't work at all for the designers out there. Vector works great. If you can do good color separations. Um, and so let's say that you wanted to do. A can that was crazy, crazy art. There's two ways to go about it. And from the designer perspective, let's say Photoshop is one and illustrator is the other.

Let's say illustrator is the one that's going to actually print. Well, again, totally, totally in the weeds. So please stop me before I 

[00:41:06] Chris: I know it's okay. Honestly, I think it's really important for even even somebody who's not a designer. If you're in the decision chair, you know, You know, and you need to make calls on what you're printing and what goes on the cans, you gotta know, you gotta have some familiarity with the programs that these folks are using that the way these things come out, like, for example, here's an easy one that you're probably going to laugh at how rudimentary this is, but like, You know, making sure your files are like in C.

M. Y. K. You know, and that they're designed. The color scheme is designed to print and not R. G. B. That's really for screens because it won't look right when it goes in. And hopefully your printer is going, Hey, this is not what you need instead of just printing it. But, um, being familiar with at least superficially, like, you know, feel a few feet deep on how this stuff works.

Could save you a lot of pain down the road, uh, with it. So, you know, listen to this podcast, listen to Chilean and learn some of these things because it'll help. 

[00:42:06] Jillian: No, that's totally right. You know, the longer you're in anyone given anything, whether it's a job or a hobby, the less you remember isn't common knowledge.

And so, yeah, I think that that is true. There's a lot of things that when you, if you were to send the wrong color mode, They might convert it for you at the printer, but that doesn't mean your colors are going to show up the way you thought they were, because that conversion changes what you're seeing.

And so that could be disappointing. You know, your, your yellow banana could easily be pink, you know, and it's just like, 

[00:42:39] Chris: or a slightly offish brownish yellow that doesn't look very appetizing. 

[00:42:43] Jillian: Yeah, yeah. And blues and purples and conversion, they are often weird. And so I just got into a kind of a techie thing, but I.

I think that that's that's so important because that's the way that, um, the end of the day, whatever art is on the can, if the production quality of that artwork doesn't look professional, it's going to cheapen the brand. Totally. 

[00:43:08] Chris: Well, you know, the other thing that somebody could do is just work with you and your company and just consult with you for those folks that are that are interested in learning more about you and getting in touch.

Tell us about tell us about the company. How do they get in touch with your website? What's your what's your deal? Uh, now's the chance to to hit him with it. What's 

[00:43:29] Jillian: my deal? Okay. So yeah, I um, I run a tiny design agency. I'll call that largely you'd be working with me. Um, so as you heard earlier, I've got about 15 years plus a design experience and the last five or six in craft beer.

Um, Depending on who you are, you know, if you are just a brewery and planning and you need to begin thinking about branding, I mean, that's a great place to start. So we can have these conversations at the beginning of what's your, what's your one year, five year, 10 year legacy plan. And I know that sounds overwhelming, but it does give you some place to start on what, what you're aiming at to be able to put a nice brand package together in the beginning.

Um, Other breweries are looking for a rebrand or a refresh or just simple new label designs. Um, I get hired a lot to do just maybe like one specialty can if they want to do something just wild and off the wall in a different style. That's their game. Um, but my typical work tends to be breweries that are looking to grow and commit to like a new brand style.

And often I get involved with those breweries and we, we work together to come up with what this rebrand looks like. Often we don't change the logo much, sometimes we do, but what changes is the packaging. To really look at the competitors, the competitive sets on the shelf and to say, hey, Where do you fit in this and how can we really make you genuinely you, but also give you shelf presence and then we create like a, a series of, of cans, let's say we'll redesign their four to six core.

And then most of the places I work with are 6 to 12 specialty a year, and we find out, it's just basically programming, and then, you know, I actually do the design work too, so this, this podcast makes it sound like I just sit there and dig the ditches of the technical stuff, and that's a really important part of it, but I also, like I said, will love to draw.

Whatever 

[00:45:32] Chris: vision you have and work done is fantastic. I mean, you can tell you are an artist and, uh, you have the, for the forethought, the foresight to see how this stuff ends up, which is huge. I mean, just go to Jillian's website. It's albin.com. Um, prob I'm not gonna spell it out. Uh, 'cause it is, it is, uh, you know, it's, it's a word.

It's uh, it's a thing. But I'll put the, in the show notes so you guys can snag this U R L, um, and, uh, And check it out. Cause there's just really, really, really, really great examples of your work. And you can get in touch with, with Jillian there and learn all about what she can do for you. And I encourage you to do so if you're trying to grow, you definitely got to consult at least so that you know.

What to expect in the roads ahead. Um, yeah, this has been so enlightening. I feel like we could talk about this again and again and again in different ways. And I would love to do that again, if you're open to it. 

[00:46:29] Jillian: No, this is super fun. Rarely do I get a chance to just blabber on about what I love most. And I really do like my job.

That's the best part is like, this, this space has been so welcoming. Um, so much fun. Everybody seems to have, for the most part anyway, a good sense of humor. And we have a good time. Like, there isn't a better group of people. So I used to do logos for lawyers and websites for inventors. And not that any of that stuff's bad, but this is really where I feel at home.

Mostly because I also like craft beer a lot, but, 

[00:47:06] Chris: um, hell yeah. Sweet. Well, um, I think we'll wrap it up here. Thank you very much for the time again, Jillian. And, uh, we'll, uh, we'll do this again soon. I know we will. 

[00:47:19] Jillian: Oh, no, thank you, Chris. I appreciate you taking the time to, to chat with me today. So of course, of 

[00:47:25] Chris: course.

See ya.