A team of business and drinks industry experts approached O Street intending to create a contemporary “Irish Whiskey” to capitalise on the burgeoning market, particularly in the United States.
They had a notion for the name but no brand, no bottle, nor any whiskey. The brief was basically, can you help us bring this idea to reality?
Peter Dibdin
Working with O Street’s Irish-based pals, SheSaid and copywriter Conor Kelly, we started by developing a brand strategy via a series of workshops and conversations.
With the brand tone set as confident, adventurous and contemporary (it’s ‘now-Ireland’, not ‘then-Ireland’) we pushed ahead developing ideas for the brand and packaging. The Restless Spirit brand concept was born.
The evocative, easy-to-pronounce, name ‘Outwalker’ was central to the brand concept. So the label itself celebrates our handcrafted modern wordmark, unadorned by colour, frills, year statement or etchings of distillery buildings.
Peter Dibdin
The label also sits low on the bottle, as a paper wrap-around, with all the focus on the liquid… and a ghostly figure in the glass.
The Outwalker figure is inspired by the Dullahan, a fantastical form taken from Irish myth and redrawn with a grungy ink sketch to add a dash of contemporary gothic.
As tempting as it was to go wild, the emphasis was on the bottle being bartender-friendly. This set our course on quietly confident designs that stood out on the shelf and would be easy to use in a cocktail speed rail. (Fun fact: a lot of your fave bottle designs won’t fit in a speed rail!)
We designed the bottle mould, keeping things at first glance conventional, but with enough unique details to elevate the design—weaving the character of the brand into the glass, capsule and stopper.
Peter Dibdin
We rounded out the Outwalker identity with a crafted set of guidelines which included photography and type treatments to fully embody the brand concept.
To capture the essence of of Outwalker, we worked with our talented photographer pal Pete Dibdin. Double points if you can spot the Holbein painting reference hidden within the bottle shots…
Outwalker launched in October 2023, at a fantastic event in Custom House Square in Belfast. You can find out where to purchase the intriguing spirit from this growing list of stockists.
“O Street brought strategic thinking, creative spark and perseverance to what has been a long but very rewarding journey in the development of our brand.”—Adrian McLaughlin, Co-Founder, Outwalker Whiskey
