We’ve been brand guardians to Filey Bay since its inception, helping launch Yorkshire’s first single malt whisky in 2018 by defining the brand strategy, visual identity and bespoke bottle design. We developed the concept of ‘Made of Yorkshire’ to encapsulate the team's field to bottle process, their people, their family histories and the essence of Yorkshireness: a place where moorlands meet big skies, rolling chalk hills meet rugged coastline, grit meets warmth and pragmatism meets vision.

Five years on, with a growing range and ambitions to reach beyond whisky enthusiasts to a wider audience of artisan consumers, our original monolithic design system which had successfully established recognition, began to show its limits. Variants were harder to distinguish at a glance, storytelling was constrained and recent sustainability-driven changes to carton packaging, meant the bottle increasingly had to work as a stand-alone asset.

Our strategic challenge was to improve range navigation and clarity whilst strengthening the master brand and creating space for future growth. We worked with the Filey Bay team to define a clear portfolio architecture across three pillars: Core, Special Releases and a new story-led range – Editions. We gave each a distinct role from a business, brand and consumer perspective, whilst defining which brand values they should amplify. This strategic framework became the creative springboard, clarifying the visual relationship between ranges and determining where brand equities should remain consistent and where they could flex.

Brand Strategy  |  Brand Architecture  |  Visual Identity  |  3D Structural Design  |  Label Design  |  Brand Guardianship