Vocation unveils major re-branding

UK’s craft brewery Vocation is re-branding its entire range, bringing more personality to the packaging to better reflect the distinct character of each beer inside.

In the newly-revealed design and branding, Vocation name features more prominently, allowing consumers to identify the brand more easily and to enable better trial across its ever expanding portfolio of beers.

The new designs uses bright colours to help differentiate the individual beers while carefully
maintaining the brand’s strong craft sensibility. A new ‘Vocation V’ brand icon has been introduced to add interest and allow for easier identification.

Brand design agency Robot Food, Vocation’s design partner since its beginnings in 2015, has designed the new branding. The newly branded range is available now across most retailers in 330 ml and 440 ml cans. New point-of-sale material, including branded beer runners, parasols and glassware, is also available to all on-trade customers.

John Hickling, founder and CEO of Vocation Brewery, says: “As a brewery we have quietly gone about our business since 2015 in a beer-focused way, not making big noise or banging the drum. What started out as my vocation soon evolved to be the vocation of our small but dedicated team who all have a real pride in the beers that we produce.

“We’re now growing at 65 per cent year-on-year, and have a wide and varied core range as
well as producing specials and seasonals. Our flagship Life & Death beer is now one
of the best-selling beers in the craft aisle, representing around 30 per cent of our production, yet people don’t know about us. The re-brand is about the maturity and growing confidence of the brand, to shout a little louder and make sure everyone knows about Vocation. It’s simply about wanting to get better beer to more people,” Hickling said.

Rick Stenson, managing director for Vocation Brewery, said that the management wanted Vocation beer to look “as good as possible because we care so much about them”.

“It’s also important to us to keep the designs fresh and interesting, to best reflect what’s inside, and to keep us at the forefront of the craft beer market. The liquid inside remains the same, we’ve just treated them to a new outfit,” Stenson said, adding that the firm is stronger now in the supermarkets now that ever been.

“The big focus for us now is to turn to the on-trade as it starts to recover and open up, and respond to the demand for craft beer in pubs and restaurants. Over the last 18 months we have gained an extremely strong online following through our web sales. We have also gained significant inroads with our export market, with our beers now available in 50 countries around the world,” he said.

Vocation Brewery is an independent craft brewery based in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. It has 60 staff and sells the equivalent of 10 millions cans per year.