Fade up on a lone figure standing among cattle on a ranch in Montana
“On the brink of selling my grandfather’s ranch for a song, my father and I began selling grass-fed beef locally.”
Agency: Freelance | Client: Montana Meat Co. | Year: 2013
Perfect product, perfect timing
In 2013, Montana Meat Company was a small ranch that needed a modern refresh on their brand as well as on-going design support to help grow their business. While the ranch was a single entity, the idea was to create a collaborative of ranches to sell under the same name. The market was ripe for this, people wanted to know where their meat came from, and would pay more for grass-fed, no growth hormones, meat raised in Montana.
Future thinking, with nods to the past
After some discovery and market research I chose a direction that nodded to old west with a modern twist. Brand colors were based on a farm palette, with steel gray and grass-fed yellow. At the time, there was a large revival of vintage logos, leaning into the ornate and decorative styles. While these look great 100 years later as a throwback, they can feel dated quite quick, so I tied small elements like the outline, boxing and “Co”.
Deliverables
Once the branding was established, we moved on to point-of-sale elements such as meat case stickers (seen on right), shelf strips, sale/pricing cards and packaging stickers (seen in additional element below). I contracted Teresa Keserich to produce custom typographic for some of the brand elements, as well as illustrations for the MMCo delivery van wrap. These helped establish the brand in the community, and served as value add to the members of the collective.
To help grow MMCo, I produced a seven minute motion graphic using Garls voice over talent. This helped win a $75k grant from the state of Montana.
Down the line, we created sub-brands, to help market similar product to other markets. Montana Natural Pork, Idaho Meat Co etc.
Riding off into the sunset
During my time serving MMCo, the owner saw a large period of growth. With the help of the marketing materials, they were able to secure a $75k grant from the State of Montana, and grew even more. This was the only time I ever offered to work on trade; Grass-finished heritage breed bacon…sooooo good.
“This guy has been an MVP in helping grow our business from the early stages. Colin picked up on our essence and ran with it to create the face of our company. Couldn't be happier. He's created a ton of value in our brand, while stepping into new realms for both of us - like creating value-added product packaging, motion graphic presentations, and specific customer oriented promo materials. Colin wasn't afraid to get involved with other aspects of the projects (aside from the design), and saw them through to completion. Couldn't have got off the ground without him.”
additional elements
