Building a craft brewery brand from a handshake deal to stadium placements.
COMPANY: Half Lion Brewing Co. INDUSTRY: Craft Beer ROLE: Design Director + Partner
Overview
Half Lion Brewing Company came to me in its fourth year. They had just opened their first restaurant location, the beer was good, and the trajectory was there, but the brand hadn't caught up to the ambition. I had designed their original logo a few years earlier in exchange for them naming their flagship pale ale after me ("The Lloyd Pale Ale.") They didn't have money for brand design at the time, and I figured the clout would be more interesting than the cash. When they were ready to grow, they called me back and this time offering an equity stake in the company in exchange for coming on as Design Director. I said yes. When you believe in the product, that's a better deal than a retainer.
Goal
Build a brand system strong enough to support rapid retail and hospitality expansion across Washington state, including grocery stores, stadiums, golf courses, and airport locations. That meant creating everything from scratch: brand guidelines, a scalable can design system, a merch vertical with its own e-commerce infrastructure, and a sports partnership strategy that could put Half Lion in front of tens of thousands of people at a time.
My Role
I started where any brand project should start — with the raw material. I pulled together everything that made Half Lion distinct: the phrase "The Rugged Luxury of Real Beer," the visual language inside the brewery, the stories behind the people who built it. Our customers were mostly blue collar workers, but they liked the high-end gear when they did rugged stuff like camping, hunting, fishing, and drinking beer. They drove $100k pickups to haul their $700 coolers to play $350 rounds of golf. I had laser focus to bring that "rugged luxury" into every facet of the brand. From that I wrote and designed a full set of brand guidelines that gave outside vendors, agencies, photographers, and designers a clear North Star to work from.
That foam green color was actually made popular from the National Forest Service vehicles which were well-known to our customer base. The other colors/textures we used were hammered copper, genuine leather, and polished wood.
The logo I had originally traded for a beer name was now the foundation of a full design system. I built it to scale — modular enough that new can designs could be added to the flagship lineup without starting from scratch each time.
On merchandise, I reached out to custom apparel companies throughout the Pacific Northwest and sourced a network of vendors to keep inventory stocked and fresh. The line covered flannels, t-shirts, headwear, and accessories. Sticking with the brand of "Rugged Luxury" we went with high-end blanks for our apparel sticking with brands like Filson and Lululemon. For coasters and koozies we did embossed leather. We charged more for these and always kept our margins, but our customer base was already wearing and expecting finer garments and accessories so we provided that with our logo and brand marks. Within the first six months of launch, web merchandise sales were up 300%, and Half Lion was shipping branded gear around the country.
The sports partnership work came out of my personal network and turned into one of the most visible parts of the brand's growth. At T-Mobile Park, I led a full takeover of Edgar's Cantina — Half Lion branded throughout, exclusively Half Lion beers and hard seltzers on tap, with a marquee sign in the outfield. At Lumen Field, Half Lion became the official craft beer sponsor of the XFL's Seattle Dragons. We did a full stadium digital graphics takeover and the company got the Nike suite for home games. At the Kent ShoWare Center, we partnered with the Seattle Thunderbirds on several arena beer releases, each one tied to a custom design inspired by their jerseys, including the Cross Check IPA and Celly Blonde. We also landed a retail can release with the Tacoma Stars, using their jerseys as the design inspiration, and secured center chest sponsor placement on the Tacoma Narrows FC kit.
Beyond the stadiums, Half Lion had a presence throughout Sea-Tac Airport and operated a fully wrapped branded food truck and delivery van that extended the visual identity into the streets.
After two years of building the brand from the ground up, I hired a small in-house design team, packaged up every file, system, and guideline, and handed it off in a way that gave them everything they needed to keep the momentum going. Then I went back to full-time creative work for major tech brands.
Craft beer and the culture around it is something I'm still genuinely passionate about. Half Lion gave me a rare chance to go all in on a brand I believed in, from the first logo sketch to stadium digital takeovers, and build something that could outlast my involvement. Not every project gives you that.
Outcome
The new brand and design system changed how the industry saw Half Lion. Retailers and restaurants started buying faster than the brewery could produce, which led them to double production capacity and bring on new brewers and packaging staff just to keep up with purchase orders.
Merchandise web sales grew 300% in the first six months. The brand was now in grocery stores, stadiums, and airport terminals throughout Washington state, with placements at T-Mobile Park, Lumen Field, and Kent ShoWare Center. The food truck and delivery van took the brand to street level.
The sports partnership network continued to expand after my tenure, with new XFL ownership restarting conversations and additional sponsorship opportunities building on the foundation that had been laid.