Penwhapple Distillery

The first to bring a premium gin to market, the first to use vacuum distillation columns, William Grant & Sons are continuing to lead an industry by opening their first distillery, not for production, but for play. Penwhapple distillery is a dedicated space for exploration, supporting staff to push the boundaries in process, taste and mindset to create the next new. A staff engagement workshop helped key stakeholders from William Grant & Sons to define project goals, explore the distillery’s vision and values. This helped inform brand themes for us to progress design and copy. Our solution had to engage all voices, ideas and skillsets across the company and help document its processes. An evolving brand that would respond to the unique and unknown output of the space. Inspired by pegboards and barrel stacks, our solid grid system forms the base on which the brand grows and evolves. Typography and colour act as tools to unite William Grant & Sons reputable heritage with a more modern message. We developed a tagline, positioning statement and distillery philosophy to help clearly communicate the unique concept to staff. Expanding on the brands grid system, we created a series of icons to help the distillery communicate and document complicated machinery and processes. As results are not often a tangible finished product, the team needed design tools that would help them communicate and document each project. We created a library of 22 abstract shapes, each one representing a key component within an experiment. These shapes can be built up, creating a unique fingerprint for each research project. To help staff engage with this exciting new concept we proposed a series of engagement tools; a project prototype builder, a wall planner and idea generation notebooks. An invite to the opening encourages staff across the company to step foot in the distillery and get hands on with the creative process.