PangPang Aight
Package design for PangPang Aight, the world’s crappiest adjunct beer.
BACKGROUND:
The infamous PangPang, Stockholm’s first microbrewery, contacted us to brand their new cheap beer that was not allowed to be called “Light.” Within the language of brewing, the term adjunct has come to imply inferiority, but today’s enlightened brewers need not fear the adjunct. In a world full of giant breweries trying to pose as craft brewers, PangPang stands out as an original craft brewery that big beer brands want to emulate. So, founder and master brewer Fredrik Tunedal decided to flip the program and copy giant breweries instead by creating the crappies beer he could. He used the cheapest adjuncts he could find as inspiration, and went all out of his way to make his beer bland and boring. He took unspeakable steps with the yeast to stress it, trying to go back to unfussy times “when men were men and beer was beer.” The problem was, it turned out delicious and people loved it.
THE CASE:
When we received this assignment, the brief was to brand this happy accident as a cheap, light U.S. beer. We just couldn’t call it “Light.” So, the name became “Aight.” Ironically as in, “this beer is alright” even though it was damn tasty. Since Frederik the brewer did a little of his own time traveling in the brewing process, we started there. Inspired by the “me decade” of 1980s America, the devastated world of Mad Max, and cheesy chromed metallic typography, we came to the conclusion that everything the 80s was almost always overdone. The typographic solution we landed on deliberately makes people read “Light” instead of “Aight,” while closer inspection reveals the true name: “Aight.” PangPang’s beer has been a totally rad success. And the secret remains: PangPang Brewery’s magic stems not from the ingredients or the recipe but from the alchemy and craftsmanship of its master brewer.