Mountain Town Brewing Company
Brand Identity Design
Logo Design
Packaging Design
Illustration
House Brand Identity
Flagship Beer Logo
Product Line Packaging
Merchandise & Promotional Items
Marketing Collateral
Founded in 2007, Mountain Town Brewing Company had established a loyal following in central Michigan and was preparing to expand into new regional markets. But the brand had evolved faster than its visual identity, leaving a fragmented system that no longer reflected the brewery’s personality, ambition or growing product lineup.
MTBC partnered with Cooley Designs to rethink the brand from the ground up, beginning with the parent identity and extending into a packaging system designed to strengthen recognition and support future growth.
Original coexisting logos
Multiple logos and variations of the brewery’s name were being used simultaneously, creating an inconsistent brand presence and weakening recognition. Before developing a new identity, the first challenge was to establish clarity around the name and determine what the parent brand needed to represent.
That process led to the adoption of Mountain Town Brewing Company, creating a more distinctive foundation with greater personality and storytelling potential.
Primary logo reversed
Primary logo black
Brand mark
With the name established, the new identity was designed to provide a simple, flexible foundation for the growing brand. A clean, monochromatic logo places emphasis on “Mountain Town” to strengthen recognition, while the understated “Brewing Company” treatment allows the identity to work seamlessly alongside more expressive product branding.
The system was extended across merchandise, business cards, glassware, kegs and other touchpoints, creating a consistent parent identity without competing with the individual personalities of the beers.
Beer Keg
Bottle Cap
Promotional gear - baseball cap
Merchandise - bottle opener
Merchandise - pint glass
Business cards
With the parent identity established, attention turned to the product line. The existing packaging relied on dated graphics, literal interpretations and limited differentiation between beers, making it difficult to create a recognizable presence on crowded retail shelves.
The challenge was to develop a packaging approach that could give each beer its own personality while still creating enough consistency to build recognition for Mountain Town as a whole.
Original bottle label design - Train Wreck Ale
Train Wreck Amber Ale became the starting point for the new packaging direction. Rather than relying on the literal train crash imagery of the original label, the redesigned identity takes inspiration from the familiar railroad crossing sign. Replacing the traditional “X” with crossbones creates a distinctive mark that connects directly to the name while giving the beer a stronger personality of its own.
Bold color, custom illustration and clear typography established a visual language that could extend across bottles, cans, six-pack carriers, tap handles, signage, sell sheets and other applications. More importantly, the approach created a framework that could be adapted across the broader product line while allowing every beer to remain distinct.
Primary logo
Secondary logo - white/black
Brand mark
Bottle label, bottle cap, tap sticker, keg ring dielines
6-pack carrier dieline
Case container dieline
6-Pack Carrier
12oz bottle
16oz cans
Merchandise - metal sign
Marketing collateral - sell sheet
What began as an identity refresh became a comprehensive brand system designed to work from the brewery level down to individual products. A simplified parent identity created consistency, while the packaging system gave each beer the freedom to develop its own recognizable personality.
Together, the identity, packaging and supporting materials gave Mountain Town Brewing Company a more cohesive and distinctive presence, with a flexible foundation capable of supporting new products, new applications and continued growth.
