Responses by Harrison Croft, creative director and designer, and Lee Salisbury, founder and chief creative officer, UnitOneNine.

Background: Darryl McNally, one of Ireland’s most decorated master distillers, set out to fulfill his lifelong dream of crafting an exceptional single-barrel, single-malt Irish whiskey and doing it from Limavady, Northern Ireland, his hometown and his ancestor’s distillery from 1750. This site introduces Limavady to the world for the first time since the 20th-century prohibitions.

Larger picture: The new site for Limavady is part of the initial product and brand launch. We worked with the Limavady team to develop the brand story and build a solid foundation for the brand as it begins its journey from Northern Ireland to the rest of the world.

We have a lot of experience in the spirits category and know the importance of each element that goes into every bottle. Each piece has a role, from the place of origin and family history to the process and ingredients to the experience and emotional connection of sharing spirits with friends. It’s always a pleasure to uncover these stories and promote them.

Design core: This was Limavady’s first brand execution, so we were challenged with taking the logo, a very minimal color palette and typography and expanding it into a design system and creative platform for the website, but also to carry over to other marketing materials.

One of our goals was to differentiate Limavady from what we typically see and think of in the world of Irish whiskeys, a category that plays mainly on heritage. While heritage is essential and a major element for Limavady as well, we wanted its tonality to be more bold, modern and progressive while still giving a nod to the past.

The story of Limavady (which translates to ‘the leap of the dog’) was another key direction. You’ll see a lot of references to man’s best friend in the photography and graphical elements.

Favorite details: The Limavady bottle is based on the original bottle from 1750 and has a unique shape, which we realized also presented a design opportunity. Since this is the brand’s initial launch, we also wanted to focus on bottle recognition, which always forms a vital part of building familiarity with brands in the spirits category. We worked with a 3-D artist to create the bottle render that became the primary design element for the homepage. We wanted people to get a feel for the entire bottle, so we created a 3-D animation that enables people to see the bottle rotate as they scroll down the page.

Technology: The site was designed in Figma and leveraged Webflow to bring the design to life through code. The site utilizes advanced animation techniques not typically seen in Webflow: the 3-D bottle rotation is a Lottie file built in Adobe After Effects and then implemented in Webflow. Ultimately, the back-end experience brings together a platform that works wonderfully for the client and enables some special pieces to be heightened through technology.