If you’re doing Dry January, look away now. Mother Design has led the identity refresh for Jägermeister, the 90-year-old German herbal liqueur with a “hard-to-break bottle” and “an impossible-to-crack secret recipe” which probably featured in some blurry nights over the past couple of weeks. Initially launched in December in time for the festive season, the accompanying brand campaign invites the young and the carefree to indulge in their party side.

“Jägermeister tasked us with bringing them out of the darkness and into a more positive, bright world. Dealing with global markets with different nuances and needs, we needed to modernise the brand in a way which enabled them to have a unified global brand presence with local energy,” explains Kirsty Minns, partner and ECD at Mother Design.

“The final creative concept was designed to own and expand on an iconic part of the Jägermeister story – the bottle. We took this heritage distinctive brand asset and made it exciting and relevant to Gen Z, whilst ensuring the visual identity was flexible enough to also cover their premium audience needs.”

With its earthy palette and rounded corners, the bottle has inspired motifs that subliminally nod to Jägermeister’s history. “Everything from the typography system, colour, pattern, texture and framing device all derived from aspects of this world.” The team also developed motion design principles allowing the identity to shine on digital touchpoints.

The typeface used in the brand’s wordmark – a style that’s become popular again in the last few years – informed a suite of patterns and assets. It’s a clever way of tapping into its heritage while feeling contemporary.

A key part of the project was ensuring the designs could be used effectively moving forward. “For any large global drinks brand there are always challenges in being able to meet the needs of individual markets whilst maintaining the all-important consistency that drives brand awareness. So we created a brand asset generator tool, enabling the client to create, combine and output design elements which were always on brand,” Minns explains.

“Using this technology allowed the design system to roll out globally, maintaining the intricacies of the brand expression while still empowering teams to create whatever assets they needed.

“Crucially, this isn’t about replacing designers with a tool,” Minns highlights. “There was a huge amount of development and craft that was involved in the input upfront that has allowed us to create something that will provide the long-term solution that Jägermeister was looking for. It’s something we are excited to experiment with more, looking at what can be possible in the future.”

motherdesign.com