How Great Design Drives Traffic.

When Mother Earth Brewery, a local microbrewery in Kinston, N.C., decided to open up its bohemian-inspired beer business, it knew it needed to stand out from the crowd. It needed a look, feel and brand personality that made an impact on shelves – screaming “Buy me, I taste as good as I look!” but also reflected its values. So, the brewery turned to FWV and its ridiculously-talented creative department to find the solution. Central to this was how important it was to create a look and feel for the brand that, while reflecting the handcrafting and local nature of the product, didn’t look amateurish.

Once the initial research was completed (all great branding and marketing starts with research, right?), a personality emerged. Kinda granola, kinda rock and roll – but all personal and handcrafted. With that, came very distinct creative.

The clean, modern logo depicting the beauty of the Mother Earth came first.  Vibrant colors, a sense of motion and interesting plays on positive and negative space.  From there, the packaging and website www.motherearthbrewing.com evolved, bringing together elements of those key influences, environmental responsibility, rock and roll spirit and really, really good beer.  Bottle labels and six-pack cartons came next…all done with a simultaneous nod to classic vinyl rock and roll and sophisticated design to catch the attention of thirsty shoppers.

Since its launch, Mother Earth’s site has been featured on a number of influential design blogs, including Smashing Magazine's blog post titled "Showcase of Beautiful Textured Web Designs."  (Smashing has 170,000 RSS subscribers and 750,000 monthly unique visitors.)

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/29/showcase-of-beautiful-textured-web-designs

Design-related blog posts have generated more than 20,000 visits to ME in the last month. So, the net is that great design, even at the local level, DOES, in fact, help Web traffic – and in turn sales.