Brewery or Bakery

Aurum Brewery is based on Alchemy and it four elements.

Though I love graphic design, I think it has best served me by teaching me the process of research behind any strong artwork that communicates an idea.  The specific example I will discuss is the creation process of Aurum Brewery's design.

As an artist it is important to look at the areas that influence my work.  This includes the artmaking process of individual bodies of work as well as the process of how I learned to work.  This post will describe a bit about the impacts my graphic design work has taught me to work.  The most significant aspect of conceptual graphic design (my minor) is that of developing a concept.  For most of our graphics projects in class we would focus the first two to weeks on brainstorming, researching and developing a strong concept with many layers.  The next week is developing a logo in black and white (while still researching), the 4th week is spent completing the design work and executing the project just before critique.  The process entails an incredible amount of research, just as my current bodies of work.  I would guess that most of my posters are 60 - 90% research and the rest is time spent creating the work. 

Here is an example of the research for this specific group project.  The brewery or bakery project where your group is asked to choose between a bakery and brewery.  We decided on Brewery today.  I think that our concept is going to revolve around the idea of comparing brewing beer to alchemy.  There are several reasons for this comparison.  In addition to the complexity of process there is also the similarity of the ingredients.  Both processes include for main elements/ingredients.  The four elements of alchemy (Earth, water, fire, and air) and the four main ingredients in beer (grain, water, yeast, and hops).  We are comparing the four elements to the four main ingredients: water is water; hops represents earth; yeast represents fire and; gran represents air.  In the brewing process grain turns into wort which is necessary for the yeast to work; in alchemy air is needed for fire...

The main goals of alchemy were to turn various metals into gold and to find the elixir of life or the fountain of youth.  This life giving liquid would make one live forever.  We agreed that comparing our product (which is gold in color) to this ultimate goal of never ending life and the gold people were searching for would be a wise marketing idea.

Here are some of the symbols we plan to incorporate into the project.  Above is the ancient symbol of r alchemy.  The outer circle represents the macrocosm(s) and the small circle the microcosm(s).  The triangle is humanity and the square is the four elements.  The four triangles are the symbols for the four elements.  There are a ton more symbols that we may incorporate. 

The logo is based on the Alchemical symbols for gold.

Looking Back: We did not end up using these specific symbols, but instead found a symbols book and used two of the specific symbols for gold and created our own symbols for the elements.  The horseshoe shape and the two teardrops with a spike (which would have been attached to a circle) are two of the symbols for gold that we were attracted to and based our logo design after.



Check out my Facebook page to see more photos of this project.

See my working process for the individual works of my Make it Plain series.