Guinness Breweries
Building a distinctive brand world for Guinness Breweries.
As creative lead for the GuinnessBrewery account, I helped shape how the brand showed up across packaging, campaigns, events, social content, merchandise, and the physical brewery experience.
The challenge was to create work that felt unmistakably Guinness while giving the Open Gate Brewery enough freedom to experiment. Each beer, event, and seasonal moment needed its own personality, but the larger system still had to feel cohesive, recognizable, and rooted in the history of the brand.
I led creative direction from concept through execution, working across strategy, design, copy, production, and client leadership. Over the course of the partnership, we developed a flexible visual language that could move between limited-release beer cans, national print, digital content, event identities, outdoor signage, and on-site experiences without losing the core of the brand.
All work done as a part of Collins + Co.
my rolE
Executive Creative Direction
Brand Strategy
Art Direction
Packaging
Campaigns
Social and Digital
Experiential
Team Leadership
THE WORK
A flexible system built for experimentation
The Open Gate Brewery releases a rotating collection of experimental beers, each with its own story, flavor profile, and audience. I led the development of a packaging approach that allowed every release to feel individual while maintaining a clear relationship to Guinness.
The resulting system balanced the visual authority of the master brand with more expressive illustration, typography, color, and storytelling. Several of the can designs received industry recognition for their concept and execution.
Joe Montana x Guinness
For a Super Bowl collaboration between Guinness and Joe Montana, we created a limited-edition beer and visual identity that brought together two iconic names with deep ties to football culture.
The design balanced the heritage and visual authority of Guinness with a more energetic, game-day expression built around Montana’s legacy. I led the creative direction and design across the beer can, campaign imagery, and supporting promotional materials, creating a collectible release that felt unmistakably Guinness while giving the partnership its own distinct identity.
A brand guide designed to create consistency without limiting creativity
As the volume and variety of work expanded, I led the creation of a comprehensive brand guide for Open Gate Brewery.
The guide established the visual and verbal principles needed to keep the brand cohesive across internal teams, agency partners, campaigns, packaging, digital channels, events, and the brewery environment. Rather than prescribing a single visual formula, it created a framework the brand could continue to evolve within.
Campaigns and content across every consumer touchpoint
Beyond packaging, I directed integrated work supporting seasonal releases, brewery programming, cultural moments, partnerships, and major events.
The work extended across:
Social and digital campaigns
Paid and organic content
Event identities and promotional collateral
Outdoor and environmental signage
Merchandise and brewery materials
National print advertising
Motion and digital content
On-site consumer experiences
Every execution began with the same question: how can this feel timely and culturally relevant while remaining unmistakably Guinness?
THE IMPACT
The partnership grew from a focused creative engagement into a broader Agency of Record relationship, with the account expanding by approximately 65% between breweries.
The work helped establish a more consistent and recognizable identity while giving the brand enough flexibility to support a constant rhythm of new beers, seasonal programming, partnerships, and experiences.
It also created a scalable creative foundation that allowed multiple teams and partners to produce work without losing the point of view that made the brewery distinct.
SELECTED RECOGNITION
Hermes Creative Awards Gold Winner — Guinness Oktoberfest Beer Can Design, 2024
Hermes Creative Awards Gold Winner — Guinness Winter Warmer Beer Can Design, 2025
Hermes Creative Awards Gold Winner — Guinness & Goetze Beer Collaboration - Beer Can Design, 2025
Superbowl Beer Partnership With Joe Montana — Recognized across number media outlets 2026