Brief 12 // 21st Whisky // Colours

Looking into colours was quite an important factor for the branding. I wanted to see what colours were present and used in other brands, so I knew what to work around. I want to keep within these colour ranges, but use different ones to what are already out there, trying to put a spin on the traditional whisky.

I found some colour swatches which are all related to whisky.

From these swatches its clear to see that the colours that are used are red, blue, green, orange and yellows and black and greys. This was interesting to see as I havent personally seen that many whiskies with there branding being so striking with the use of these colours above. But in a good way these reassured me as the colours coming to towards the end - greens, yellows and oranges were the colours I were thinking about using. 

Colours

So using the swatches within illustrator, this gave me a starting off point, as I have said above, green, yellow and orange were my ideas for the colours range. 

This was the first colour choices. The green was the main colour, I like the idea of the turquoise green, its a subtle and pastel type colour, but it also brings a freshness and brightness to the whisky world. The orange shows a rich product and this contrasts the green nicely. The yellow was always going to be a difficult one, because they are often hard to see against white, as you can see with the one above, it is quite vibrant and doesn't match the pastel / dull ness of the orange and green. 

Sticking with the orange and green I tried replacing the yellow with a light brown, but the result isn't as strong, the brown doesn't really work with the orange and green and its not that nice of a colour to have within a brand. Even though the yellow above isn't usable, it is better than this brown, so I think an in between colour will be the right choice. 

The final colour set. Along with working on the yellow, I have slightly changed the colour range of the orange. I felt that the orange in the previous palettes was quite strong and had a red tinge to it, this clashed with the green more than I wanted it to and wasnt that complimentary towards it. By making the orange more orange and losing the amount of red within the colour, it has brought it back in line with the colour palette and works much better with the green. The yellow works alot better, by mixing the first and second colours together I have created a pastel type yellow which fits the range of the other two colours and also sits well on a white background, this is much easier to see and use on a white label. 

I feel that these colours work in line with the swatches that I found within my research about the colours of whisky, but at the same time bring a new light on the idea of whisky branding. I think that these are more contemporary colours for a whisky product and lend themselves to a more modern design aesthetic - which is what I am going to be creating.