Understanding the client's vision is the most important factor to create a successful brand identity. I always start with a series of questions about the client's business and their values. Gathering inspiration and getting the ball rolling.

 

Although I had some ideas going, I started with research on other liquor stores around the area, particularly with their logo and how their sign appeared from the street. Most liquor stores have a fairly boring straight forward logo or street sign and red is often used to emphasize the "Liquor" part in the name of the store. It's usually much larger than the name itself to draw attention to the store. As far as the look and feel goes I wanted Hollister Liquor to stand out from the rest.

 

After playing with the lettering I came up with a detailed sketch of the logo and quickly rendered it in Illustrator. With a few iterations I was able to come up with the desired look and feel for the brand. In this case the client wanted the entire name to be emphasized equally. So I recognised an opportunity to incorporate a bottle in the name itself and tie it to the "Liquors" with red. The custom lettering also plays a role in attracting customers to the brand.

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The client wanted a unique design for the business cards. The front of the card would hold essential business information and the back would highlight the brand with some hidden graphics. Although the back of the card would be a dark gray the floating bottles including the store logo would be raised and spot UV'd. This effect during the printing process will allow the bottles to be visible under light but not take away from the logo since they are the same color as the background.