James Ready
Services
- Brand Strategy
- Logo Design
- Brand Identity
- Packaging Design
- Typography
location
- Canada
James Ready
Rebranding a 100+ year old Canadian icon, for the modern consumer and old faithful, alike.
Rebrand
For over a century James Ready has been an icon in the Canadian beer market. Passed from one generation to the next, almost as if tradition. The problem was the brand was feeling out of date, and JR was looking to increase market share nationally by attracting a younger demographic of beer drinkers, while remaining true to their loyal drinkers.
Our goal was to build upon an established brand history rooted in Scottish heritage, creating something unique and ownable to JR.
We started by stripping away the non-essentials leaving us with just the Scottish Rampant Lion. The heart of James Ready. We then distilled the lion to its core. Using circular geometry, contrasted by sharp edges, creating a more aesthetically precise James Ready lion for the ages. With a nod to its Scottish heritage.
The roots of the new brand typography are grounded in the visual landscape of brand marks and fonts of rural Canada. James Ready’s visual language taps into an aesthetic that our demographic was not only familiar with, but one they wanted to be associated with. Built upon Brothers (typeface designed by John Downer), we evolved the letterforms to match the visual language of our newly redesigned rampant lion. The proportional relationships between rectilinear volumes, circular geometry contrasted by sharp endpoints, and grid-based design within the lion are mirrored in the anatomy of that evolved brand typography. A distinct visual relationship that harmonizes the new JR branding.
Whether stocked as singles in a beer fridge, stacked in flats, or buried under ice, JR is easy to spot and from any angle.
