Everyone in West Concord, MA knows Saltbox.

It’s a restaurant, caterer, co-op farm, and cooking school all in one, offering farm-to-table food that draws people from all over the Boston area. It’s been an important fixture of the West Concord community since the 1940s, and it’s just getting started. Now there's a new member of the Saltbox family: Saltbox Brewery.

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Community impact

In an increasingly commercialized society, even food becomes more abstracted from its contexts. Saltbox is an incredibly refreshing departure from that norm.

Nearly everyone in the community has come through Saltbox’s doors, often at the farm, where they learn to cook incredible meals alongside the farmers who grow all the ingredients right here. It was so interesting to design for a client where a holistic experience isn’t just valued—it’s the entire point.

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All preceding images by Cara Holmes. Used with permission.

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I worked with the Saltbox team to imagine what the first farm-to-table, limited edition craft beer brand should look like. How could we design a beer brand worthy of inheriting a nearly 80-year-old heritage?

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Process

The first step was to research the farm and restaurant with a visit.

I met Dan Gregoire, the brewer, Ali Sullivan, the head of marketing, and of course, Ben Elliot, the owner and head chef, who welcomed me with a comprehensive tour.

I also spoke to scores of patrons coming into the restaurant over the course of the day, asking them what the Saltbox brand meant to them, and how it could evolve as it took this next step.

The answers were varied, but there were some consistent themes: it was clear that the incredible story of the farm had to be front and center.

History

The Saltbox story is a story of the American Dream. In the 1940s, Ben’s grandparents, Edward and Emilie Thomas, immigrated to America and built a farm.

Ben grew up on the farm with his grandparents, and in 2004, he and his family moved back and began restoring and improving it in 2008.

Learn more about Saltbox’s history

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Design Direction

Though the farm may seem traditional at first glance, its history is actually surprisingly intertwined with Modernism

As I took a walk through the barn (and past some newly-arrived sheep), I noticed prints on the walls. They seem at first glance to be 19th century, but on further inspection, you discover that they’re actually modern (20th century) imitations, harkening back to a more traditional time but, in fact, contemporary with the farm’s founding.

This desire to connect with tradition isn’t unique to Saltbox; it was common when Saltbox started. Emerging from the Great Depression, and against the backdrop of WWII, a subgenre of artists established the art movement now called Regionalism. In a rapidly, violently changing world where one could be less certain than ever of even one’s food supply, a contingent of American artists—many of them New Americans (recent immigrants) themselves—created art depicting a neo-Romanticism, with pastoral scenes and quaint towns and classic “Americana” life.

At a time when Futurism was extolling the virtues of the violent machinery of modernity, this was a sort of new, pastoral Manifest Destiny, emphasizing the honesty of living within one’s means and staying true to one’s roots.

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Market Landscape

Craft beer labels tend to have a fairly consistent feel: hipster, urban, and edgy—think bright colors and line illustration

Here’s an example, this one from Unsplash, and here’s the design on Dribbble. I love this style, but it wasn’t right for Saltbox.

Saltbox wanted something distinctly different and more in keeping with their history. Something that would convey the unique aspects of Saltbox’s history and farm-to-table heritage.

I proposed we investigate commissioning a painting in the Regionalism style. My friend Annika Tucksmith is an incredible painter whose style closely matched what we were looking for, so I asked if she’d be interested in the project. Lucky for us, she was, and she painted an incredible original work that would be perfect for the label.

Featured is the saltbox-style house that is the farm’s namesake, hops (grown right on the farm), and Saltbox Prophecy, Edward and Emilie’s first horse and the name of Saltbox’s flagship beer.

Prophecy stands still for now, free of any kind of harness or human constraint, at dusk—or is it dawn?—a physical manifestation of Edward and Emilie’s American Dream now over four-score years ago. It’s also Ben’s dream too, and that of the entire Saltbox team. Always ready to run toward the next challenge, the next opportunity, the next horizon.

Brand Identity

With a limited existing visual brand identity, the project involved a significant branding component as well.

From colors to typefaces, the visual brand was open to further exploration. The existing logo had come from an original millstone on the farm (left), and had been redrawn to include a texture around its border.

I proposed an updated visual brand. Though we implemented parts of it, some of the more significant changes, like those on the mockups below, where decided against in favor of the traditional logo.

The proposed brand identity strikes a more sophisticated, forward-thinking tone that embraces the brand’s modernist roots, standing out against the backdrop of tradition and history. It’s a viewpoint on a new era, a new path forward, and a bright future.

It features sans-serif type set in GT America—a fitting name of a typeface for a company that’s all about the American dream—framed by the iconic shape of the farm’s namesake: the Saltbox house that is a home to so many in the community.