I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram when I came across the call for art: a project in nearby Beaverton was running an art contest for custom beer labels. The beer was a limited run being brewed specially for the concessions sales at the Patricia Reser Performing Arts Center. The call indicated they were looking for designs that represented the Reser Center as well as their two partners: Lionheart Coffee, who manages their concessions, and Binary Brewing, the folks behind the new brews.
Visual design, the arts, beer, and the potential for some tech puns?? Yes, please!! I quickly abandoned my to-do list of Things I Didn’t Particularly Want To Do Anyway that was supposedly going to occupy my week and dove in wholeheartedly to this shiny new challenge. I researched the three organizations, learned about the public art installations around the Reser, and started scribbling out various concepts. The call allowed for multiple entries, but had a deadline just 10 days away, so I figured I’d knock out as many as I could in the time I had.
By the time I submitted my entries, I realized I’d had so much fun doing something entirely outside my typical art practice, that I no longer even cared if I won or not; it was just a fun process coming up and executing as many concepts as possible in a short amount of time.
But that internal expectation reset did not prevent me from totally losing my mind with excitement when I got the phone call saying I had been selected as one of the winners! Not only did they pick one of my entries, they even got the various layers of cryptic meaning I had incorporated. I had sort of assumed that since it was a blind jury review where I wouldn’t be able to explain anything, that it might be too obscure. But my research and weird nerdery paid off—hurrah!
It was a pretty quick turn to get the three selected designs printer-ready, but the team pulled it off and the cans all turned out great.
A huge thanks to the Reser and Lionheart, and of course Binary Brewing for producing the beer and hosting an awesome launch party!
If you can figure it the meaning behind the design, let me know and I’ll buy you a beer!
