Always Drink with Friends!

Share brews, win awards and get social

Brewski Me is the beer drinking app, made by beer drinkers specifically for beer drinkers.

When Adam Weeks and Brian Knowles, the creators of Brewski Me, first came to Rocksauce Studios for assistance in defining the personality, brand and visual style for the app, we immediately saw the potential. So much so that Rocksauce decided to partner with their company, Apps Versus Robots to make the best beer drinking app possible.

The Brand

Since a large portion of the functionality for Brewski Me had already been created by Adam and Brian, Rocksauce came on initially to create the look, feel and personality. Eventually, we worked in an agile development methodology with Apps Versus Robots to create an amazing product.

Our goal was to reach the broadest audience we could and not leave anyone alienated. When we began work on the Brewski Me logo, our initial attempts were to recreate the detailed, ornate logos you find on beers around the country. Head to your local liquor store and you’ll see the amazing artwork that breweries are using to showcase their own product.

We followed this idea, utilizing a very simple script font (in this case, the font Eclat) that would compliment the use of Helvetica Neue throughout. We tapped into the feeling of brewery art, without becoming overly complex in our execution.

The Personality

Personality wise, we wanted to be comforting, fun, and inviting. Like your favorite neighborhood bar.

We didn’t want to feel seedy, as that would turn too many away. Conversely, we didn’t want to come across too hoity-toity, as it would have the same effect. Brewski Me is made for the casual drinker and the connoisseur alike.

With all of the great art being done by breweries, we decided that simply letting bottle caps shine throughout the app, featuring the actual artwork used by the brewery whenever possible. Breweries take the time to cultivate their brands, so tapping into that as well as helping them continue their branding efforts into the app directly was the best option.

The Look

We threw around ideas about metal texture – representing a keg of some sort or perhaps making the whole thing look like full glass of beer, since the whole application is about that. We looked at what competition was out there and how they were approaching the subject and saw that most were catering primarily to a male population, with females being more of an after thought.

For the bulk of the app, we decided to use warm, rich wood textures coupled with yellow & amber branding accents, silver distressed textures for section dividers and some buttons, and vibrant, green painted wood for extremely important buttons. When necessary, a solid red is used to draw extreme attention, when even a bright green isn’t enough to stand out.

The Woods

We realized quickly that just utilizing one type of wood texture would create a monochromatic, hard to use mess. Everything would blend together and nothing would stand out.

Instead, we use the warm, darker wood for our backgrounds and lighter, blonder woods for top navigation, search/commenting bars, and segmented controls. This helps draw attention to what matters when it matters.

One of our favorite aspects of the entire design is our specific tab bar at the bottom: built to mimic a glass of frothy beer, the large center Drink! cap immediately draws users to pay attention to the main focus of the app – sharing what you’re drinking with your friends.

The Caps

Bottle caps are used in three big ways in Brewski Me.

Most obvious is their usage for the beers themselves. At launch, a few select beers have a cap that reflects what the actual product’s cap looks like. The top 50 styles have a branded placeholder, while other beers have a Brewski Me cap. Eventually, all beers will sport their own distinct cap, as will all styles.

Second, we use flipped-over bottle caps as buttons throughout the app. When you’re dealing with an element that is specifically tied to a beer itself, rather than the application, we utilize a clean and simple upside down beer cap. You’ll see them peppered throughout the app, most conspicuously as the aforementioned Drink! button on the main navigation.

For our awards, we decided to keep the awards along the lines of the beer caps. Awards are handled by achieving certain feats, like posting to Twitter or drinking a Shiner Bock after you’ve drank a Pabst Blue Ribbon Using caps for awards lets us have a lot of fun coming up with interesting ideas and to work with the bottle cap as an art form itself.