Vitae Spirits Distillery
identity, packaging & collateral
From glass beakers to a copper still
Ian Glomski was a professor of microbiology at the University of Virginia before he decided to quit his day job and open a distillery, Vitae Spirits. Ian came to Convoy in 2014 to build the brand's identity from the ground up. We knew immediately that we wanted to leverage his scientific background in the creative.
Vitae Spirits have been recognized by numerous awards for distilling, including a Bronze Medal in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition for the Golden Rum packaging design in 2017. Photos by Convoy and Vitae Spirits.
It all started with the alcohol
I developed the stylized ethanol molecule icon during the first round of concepting, and Vitae liked it right away. It was clean, contemporary, and communicated their history at a glance.
We worked closely with Charlottesville botanical artist Lara Call Gastinger, who illustrated each Vitae Spirits varietal with a unique piece. From there, we built a label design that could showcase Lara's delicate botanical art and identify each varietal with a unique color at a glance.
A digital gallery space
We wanted the website to be simple, beautiful, and full of the same botanical life as Vitae's titular spirits.
While I was working on the UI, I realized that while Lara's artwork was prominent on the labels and even on the walls of the distillery, there was no space to directly highlight her contribution and point fans of her work to more. We spoke with Vitae, and they loved the idea of a section of the site to highlight Lara's botanicals on their own. We also took to using the central botanical from each label as an identifier of the product across the site.
Ethanol you can wear
Vitae were so fond of their molecule insignia that they asked us for an extra-large rendition for one of the two t-shirt designs we developed. Photos by Vitae Spirits, and by Andrea Hubbell for Vitae Spirits.
