Hopfully Brewing Co.
At the end of 2021, a craft beer company, Hopfully Brewing, hosted a limited edition illustrated beer label competition in collaboration with the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. I was studying in Dublin as an exchange student at the time and took part in the competition. My work was chosen for the winning design and ended up on the shelves at my local supermarket a few weeks later. It was an extremely rewarding process that I enjoyed enormously. It challenged what I thought I was aesthetically as an illustrator, and working in vector graphics made me rediscover a side of my art style that I hadn't tapped into in a very long time.
the concept and idea
The birth of my idea for a holiday design for Hopfully began with exploring what the winter holidays mean to me. I landed on my personal attachment to Christmas lights and the holiday cheer they can instantly bring anywhere. It’s the first thing I put up in my home in December to get a feeling of warmth and hope during the darker winter months. However, as we all know, holidays are not only the time for relaxation and presents; it’s also quite a stressful and chaotic period where we all worry about having enough time for shopping, cooking, and presents, and now, during the strange pandemic times, we often worry if we will be able to spend the season with our loved ones at all. I wanted to portray this feeling of chaos by making the Christmas lights tangled and in the place where my character’s head would be – to visualise the feeling of chaos and uncertainty as well as cheer, brightness and hope in all of our minds during this time.
it’s always up to us
In the main sketch the Christmas lights are plugged out but still glowing, and the character is holding the plug in its hands. I tried to represent the fact that during these uncertain times we always have ourselves to rely on for joy and happiness and that we are all capable of “plugging out” of the worry and confusion and creating our own holiday cheer no matter what happens in the world.
drink responsibly
The appearance of these tangled Christmas lights also has another symbolic meaning to me, connected to alcohol. The bright lightbulbs would represent the cheerful and slightly euphoric feeling we get while being tipsy. But as we all know, after a few more cans of beer, our thoughts might become a bit tangled as well. The original name I suggested for the beer was “Lightheaded”, but it was later replaced by “Headlights”.