Last month, West Coaster took readers inside Coronado Brewing Company’s fast-expanding Bay Park headquarters, which now includes three buildings taking up nearly an entire half of a cul-de-sac. The first building that campus began with remains the largest. It is in the process of being tweaked and fine-tuned for efficiency and an enhanced customer experience. But that’s not the only thing CBC is tweaking. While the brew crew reconfigures the manufacturing process and the service staff mulls the future addition of an on-site food component, the marketing department and executive team have been hard at work tightening up the company’s look where logo and packaging are concerned. And they’re ready to share.
In debuting designs for CBC’s upcoming aluminum cans (the first of which will focus on core brands including Islander IPA and Orange Avenue Wit), company representatives want to make it clear that this is not a re-brand. After nearly 20 years in business, CBC remains a family-run business at its core, and that group remains happy with the trademark mermaid that has served as the focal point of its aesthetic over the company’s lifespan. They are also fans of incorporating the similarly iconic crimson spires of the Hotel Del Coronado. But as CBC evolves into national and international beer-makers, they realize the need to tone down the local aspect of their namesake island home to some extent. That said, conveying the San Diego lifestyle was still important.
CBC’s new tagline is “Stay Coastal.” A new color scheme—navy blue, ocean blue and white (minus that Hotel Del red)—helps incorporate that sentiment. As displayed above, CBC’s mermaid has been moved to the background, shifting from full-color to a slightly darker shade of the blue that will set the company’s cans apart from more standard aluminum beer hues such as white, black or silver. A new typeface helps provide a cleaner look that will also be applied to bottled beer. New bottles should debut in the marketplace in February when CBC releases a collaboration with Cloverdale’s Bear Republic Brewing Company. Cans will follow in March or April.