Responses by CF Napa Brand Design.
Background: Monson Ranch Distillers needed a flexible branding system for packaging as well as corporate branding. The distillery is family owned, and the design needed to reflect the Monsons’ heritage of ranching and commitment to producing high-quality, homegrown spirits while appealing to a broad audience of enthusiasts. The packaging design needed to enable differentiation between its multiple spirits and tiers of products.
Design thinking: The design needed to represent Monson Ranch Distillers’ authentic, farm-to-bottle experience and its tenure as part of the Eastern Washington farming community. We drew inspiration from the family’s ranching heritage, incorporating a logo influenced by their historic cattle brands to highlight their multigenerational commitment to farming. For the core tier packaging, we framed the logo with wrought iron–inspired filigree and placed it on a tan label for a rugged vibe. The warm, leather-like color palette was contrasted by the vibrant colors used for the proof and tax band strip to easily differentiate between products.
On the Reserve packaging, the logo was screen printed on the bottles. Impactful labels with gold foil details were utilized for the tax band strips and to display the type of whiskey. The same bottles and closures were used across tiers to allow for production efficiencies and to maintain a cohesive look for the family of spirits.
Challenges: The packaging needed to be very cost effective—from both a design and a cost-of-goods standpoint. The design of the reserve tier needed to ladder up its premium perception by building off the design elements from the core tier with minimal design exploration or cost to produce. The packaging system needed to be designed to allow for future brand growth, accommodating new products while maintaining the established system. As a limited production brand, the individual components needed to meet the client’s target cost of goods even with low purchase quantities.
Favorite details: We love the simplicity of the brand mark and monogram. They clearly communicate the brand’s strength and the Monson family’s ranching heritage while providing a clear connection between the tiers of offerings. The branding can easily be applied to every aspect of the brand’s marketing.
New lessons: We typically explore logo in tandem with packaging, but because of the client’s budget constraints, we approached this project with a “logo first” method. Once selected, the logo drove the brand’s ethos, and the secondary labels were created to provide detailing and support the limited production. The result was a project that we were able to bring from ideation to completion within a few short weeks.
Time constraints: The budget and time constraints meant that we had to work extremely efficiently, discarding any solutions that were fussy or required too much time to realize and let us focus on the core of the challenge and the ethos of the brand.
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