Michael Bierut & Pentagram Brew Branding With NYC Attitude For Ebbs Beer

There's a common belief that native New Yorkers share certain traits, characteristics borne out of growing up in the Empire City. Sometimes called a state-of-mind, an attitude, or to put it in west coast patois, a vibe. 

Citizens of Gotham can seem headstrong, unflinchingly critical, and always in a hurry. Although the frenetic pace, brutal honesty, and stark clarity might not play well in Des Moines, it seems to work for the Big Apple. You can see that spirit in the latest branding identity, naming, and packaging work by the Michael Bierut-led team at Pentagram for Brooklyn-based brewery Ebbs.

The labels are black-and-white, with some featuring an illustration by one of four artists—Chris DeLorenzo, Lennard Kok, Pol Monserrat, and Andreas Samuelsson. Ebbs, the beer name, and the beer recipe number get placed on the front of the label using Original Sans, and the result is a visual void of pretentiousness and superfluous trappings, and you won't find any wild beer names here.

The brewery name itself evokes the tide and New York's rivers and harbors, as well as Ebbets Field, the long-gone home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. That local flavor even gets extended to their tagline, “Born in Brooklyn, brewed for the people.”

Ebbs flows against the current of elaborate and fanciful craft beer branding by being bluntly straightforward and not getting lost in the design weeds. Keeping it simple, Ebbs’ to-the-point branding and packaging are true to the brewer’s Brooklyn roots.