District Made

Design: Thoroughbred Spirits
Creative Director: Benjamin Carr
Location: United States
Project Type: Produced
Client: One Eight Distilling
Product Launch Location: Global
Packaging Contents: Spirits
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Custom glass bottle, paper label

Tasked with rejuvenating an existing brand to incorporate a growing portfolio, we moved in a new direction entirely focused on what it meant to be “District Made”.

Pulling inspiration from its surroundings, the custom bottle and package design for District Made is a love affair with Ivy City and a tribute to D.C. as a whole. To celebrate the story of the district and bring it to life, every aspect of the bottle was customized.

As a result of the brand redesign, our client experienced increased brand awareness and acquired new market share. The brand is now set to introduce six new SKUs in addition to the five originally planned for the portfolio.

Additional Thoroughbred Scope:
One Eight Distilling (District Made) had a desire to take their company to the next level and engaged Thoroughbred Spirits to analyze the business and determine their strategic path forward. Once Thoroughbred Spirits put the market and financial plans in place, the most important next step was to give the products a cohesive and meaningful brand story and design to take to market.

What’s Unique?

• Custom Bottle Shape – Octagonal custom bottle representative of columns throughout D.C. and D.C. monuments
• Custom Bottle Embossing – D.C. flag embossed on sides of bottle
• Custom Map Design – Map of Ivy City specially-designed and blind embossed onto black label and under shrink wrap
• Bartender-Friendly Shrink Wrap – Vertical zip tear tab on back of shrink wrap enables quick and easy removal for bartenders and reveals SKU-specific label for clear identification going forward
• Die-Cut Reveal – Die-cut in center of front label exposes gold-lined, illustrated map of D.C. printed on inside of back label
• Print Finishes – Label includes blind deboss, blind emboss, foil, and spot varnish finishes