Tring Brewery: Taste, aroma and now applied colour psychology
Tring Brewery has launched a new look for its beers, using applied colour psychology to appeal to beer drinkers. It is believed that Tring is the first brewery in the UK to use applied colour psychology, and to recognise the importance of colour in influencing emotion, mood and behaviour.
The brewery has rebranded, starting with its pump clips, unifying its look and increasing its appeal to new and existing customers. The beer names are derived from local characters, literature or legends with new illustrations produced to represent these stories and reinforce the brewery’s connection with its locality.
Marketing Manager Ben Marston said “Since our inception over 20 years ago, we have constantly worked to offer a comprehensive range of styles to appeal to a wide audience. The results of years of dedication, the use of highest quality ingredients and evolving audience required that we refined all product branding, giving each beer the presence it deserves. We now have a cohesive design formula rather than mish mash of designs all taking cues from different stages in the brewery’s past”
Kate Marston, founder of KM Design, uses applied colour psychology, a practise whereby colours are used to influence viewers or consumers behavioural patterns. The initial task, she explains, was to identify one of four main personality groups that best represented the brewery and its products. From this starting point a link to a specific colour palette can be established and from this we begin to extract a final range of colours. Firelight (also known as the autumn group) was chosen as it uses warm, comforting tones and avoids harsh black and white. These colours all reflect the importance of heritage for Tring Brewery, their core values, use of natural ingredients and interest in its environment. This is all part of the message which the brewer of Side Pocket for A Toad and many other beers is keen to convey.
“These warm, natural colours are appetising and attractive. They have been selected to sit alongside each product, as well as saying something important about the brewery and its values. This, along with maintaining recognisable elements of past pump clips is key to the success of this rebrand for Tring Brewery” said Kate.
“You cannot underestimate the importance of colour and that if you get this wrong your customers feel uneasy even if they can’t put their finger on why this is.”
Whilst Tring Brewery’s role has been as client, Ben Marston has contributed to the project not only through direction but also in creating all the new illustrations which stylistically are a bold departure from the past water colour based images. He is quite adamant however that it was the skills of wife Kate Marston that have resulted in the successful assembly of all the typographic, pattern and compositional elements of the clips.
Tring’s pump clips have moved away from its distinctive triangle and now use a shield shape. However this is a subtle change in shape and one that will hopefully avoid consumer confusion. Kate has included triangles within the design as this reflects the heritage of the brewery which was originally located in the historic area of Tring known as the Tring Triangle.
