full sail ahead.

two weeks ago, i went beer shopping at central market and came across some sweet packaging for full sail brewing company from hood river, oregon. now i don't make as many trips to the beer aisle as i'd like, but last time i was there, i recall the full sail beers having a label that looked something like this:

boring, unimpressionable, and forgettable.

however, this time around when i once again stumbled upon it, i wanted to buy it solely because of the packaging. turned out the beer inside the bottle is quite tasty as well.

the packaging was updated by a design firm in portland called sandstrom partners, which turns out has quite a roll call of clients, including converse, levi's jeans, miller beer, tazo tea, and portland's very own trailblazers, who selected sam bowie over michael jordan in the 1984 nba draft. shame.

back to things that matter (which does not include basketball), the much needed redesign really boosts the appeal of the product. the wood grain background helps give the feel of a small 47-man brewery in the woodlands of oregon, while the thin line art seems to me to highlight the brewery's uniqueness. i think my favorite aspect of the new look lies within the new logo.


it's awesome that sandstrom took the sail from the original logo and freshened it up. in my opinion, that's the best part of the new one – the simple white sail full of wind with a slight drop shadow behind it. i'm also a fan of the font used for the name. it looks like they made the font themselves by combining the top half of a sans serif with the bottom of a german calligraphic font.

all things considered, this is one of my favorite beer designs, along with the shiner 98 (which i hear won some awards for packaging), and the rahr summertime wheat (available this month!) check out the rest of the set in sandstrom's portfolio. and if i ever find myself in oregon, i'm definitely making a point to stop at the full sail brewery.