WEEK 6: Leaves of Grass series of wild ales from Granite Falls Brewing. This is probably one of my all-time favorite meldings of beer + type. Why’s that you say? Because the main font in all of these beer label designs is directly correlated to the name of the series, and in this case the author who penned the collection of poems in a book called “Leaves of Grass”—Walt Whitman.

Beer Logo Type Fonts

The font for the logo type is called 1871 Dreamers Script, which I had originally purchases specifically for this project from Veer (but you can get it at myfonts.com). It’s based on Walt Whitman’s actual handwriting, which is exactly why it was perfect for this series!

The brewer for GFB back in 2016 is a huge fan of Walt Whitman, and pretty darn good writer himself. Utilizing this font was just one way to pay homage to Whitman, and give this label a look all its own.

Other fonts used in these label designs were IM FELL English – Regular and Italic, which can be downloaded for free from Google Fonts.

Craft Beer Label Design

The design for this label came from several conversations about Leaves of Grass and the symbolism of the “grass” and how we all simply become leaves of grass. Each ale in this series is named after a poem in the book.

The mound of grass at the bottom of the label is meant to symbolize a mounded grave with grass growing out from it. I tried several times to make this mound look more like the silhouette of a body, but in the end the symmetrical mound gave the feel I was looking for.

To either side of the main logo-type, there is hand-written prose from Walt himself. Yes, the actual poem for the beer’s namesake is on either side of the bottle. This created some hardship, if I’m being honest, but many was it worth it! So not only are you getting the beer inside, but you can also read the poem.

Even further on the “right” side of the label is the brewer’s writing which isn’t too shabby either!

Beer Logos for Taphandles

Separate from the bottle labels, logo-type graphics were created to use on tap handles and other promotions for the beer. You can see how those look below. There were actually going to be five beers (maybe more) in this series, but the series came to an untimely and unfortunate end when the brewer parted ways with GFB.

I like to think this series of beers lives on with this case study and I’m privileged to show it off!