Innis & Gunn
× Instrmnt
In Spring 2019 we were approached by Innis & Gunn to work on a bespoke product for their upcoming Ampersand Project, showcasing the work of four design-led brands based in Scotland: Instrmnt, Kestin Hare, Coco Chocolatiers, and Revo Sound. They challenged us to each create a unique product inspired by the barrel-aging process of their Original beer.
We focused on three key elements: the strap, dial and packaging.
American White Oak is used to make nearly all of the 40 million barrels around the world. We partnered with a small-scale Scottish tannery to produce a vegetable tanned leather, utilising Scottish oak acorns as the tanning agent. This produces a light beige hue which will patina and develop over time.
The ‘barrel into beer’ chipping and toasting process, undertaken in France, is surprisingly sustainable. Oak barrels that are no longer able to store alcohol are broken up with only two real waste materials left over: the one-ton polypropylene sacks for storing chips, and an excess dust that is collected but too fine to use for smoking. We salvaged both of these materials – transforming them into an outer packaging solution which ties into the industrial nature of the Instrmnt brand, while also rounding up the elements of the project into a sellable, ship-able project. Most importantly, the hardwearing nature of the polypropylene sacks means that our outer packaging solution can be used time and again, with customers encouraged to return the mailer they receive, ready for the next recipient.
The brewery is led by functionality: readable dials and gauges, naming systems, colour coding, material choices, and carefully calculated timing and ingredient combinations all come from a technical standpoint. We chose to borrow the radially brushed stainless steel aesthetic of the mash tun’s and fermentation tanks for our casing and caseback. Our dial was informed by documenting every gauge we encountered on site and breaking them down by readability, relevance and colour, prior to producing a bespoke design for our watch dial that was directly inspired by those on site.
