Cheers to Beer Pioneers!

The Sapporo Brewery was founded in 1876 in Sapporo City during Japan's industrial revolution. Once a frontier town on the island of Hokkaido, Sapporo is now the largest city in northern Japan.

The brewery, under the stewardship of Sapporo’s first brewmaster, German-trained Seibei Nakagawa, produced Japan’s first high-quality beer to use locally produced ingredients. It soon became a national success.

For its now-iconic label, Sapporo chose a symbol of the region’s pioneers, the ‘North Star’, to reflect the brand’s pioneering spirit.

For this brief, a number of illustration styles were considered before settling on a classical wood-cut style, in keeping with traditional Japanese woodblock illustrations. Philip created the single image to be used on packaging for six-packs and larger single print designs throughout Australia.

From the client - When we re-launched Sapporo in Australia, we really wanted to capture the history and pioneering spirit of the brand and share this with consumers. The illustration was able to bring this idea to life in a way that really resonated with our target audience of young, creative professionals. The illustration was so well received that we used it at all of our launch events as backdrops and there is talk that the carton design will be used internationally by Sapporo.