The ultra-premium dry gin’s visual world has been refreshed under the art direction of the award-winning graphic designer delving back into the craft and eccentric roots of the brand
MONKEY 47, the ultra-premium and top-trending* Schwarzwald Dry Gin, has launched a visual refresh that celebrates its pioneering spirit, its Black Forest heritage and its meticulous craftsmanship. This new brand world is being rolled out and brought to life at bars around the world.
At the heart of the brand world refresh is a new “wunderbar” wallpaper, created by Annie Atkins, the award-winning graphic designer who brings filmmakers’ imagination to life by making graphic props and set pieces for movie productions all over the world. Annie’s intricately crafted wallpaper design breathes new life into the eccentricity of MONKEY 47’s world – a wildly imaginative story embedded in the enigmatic quality of Germany’s Black Forest; steeped in rich visual metaphors and rooted in a place MONKEY 47 calls Heimat.**
Replacing its hugely successful jungle-inspired wallpaper, the new colourful and whimsical design combines elements that evoke a sense of adventure, eclectic fauna and botanical curiosity. It paints a revelatory world of invention filled with architectural optical illusions and clever oxymorons, where contradictions and unlikely combinations have meaning. MONKEY 47’s copper column stills emerging from behind the glossy-green forest fir trees represent the beating heart of the MONKEY 47 distillery, sometimes also referred to as the Apparatus Alembicus Maximus; intellectually inquisitive monkeys swing from vines adorned with botanical ingredients central to the complex yet elegant recipe amid prancing stags, flying cuckoos and hidden alpacas (the latter not being native to the Black Forest but amongst the distillery residents).
The brand refresh embraces MONKEY 47’s obsessive pursuit of quality – from sourcing ingredients locally to elevating uncompromising expressions that are meticulously designed, to using metaphorical illustrations to communicate wildly imaginative stories. The brand is the epitome of this principle, where nothing is superfluous – every symbolic element in its design has a deeper story, waiting to be found.
While the logo remains unchanged, the wallpaper’s muted colour palette embraces natural tones, signalling the brand’s connection to the 47 botanicals that go into producing its coveted gin.
Annie Atkins says: “Visiting the Monkey 47 distillery in the Black Forest was an adventure in itself. I wanted the design of their wallpaper to do justice to the intricate process of creating a gin with so many different botanicals. So, I looked to William Morris and MC Escher for my inspiration (if you look closely, the jungle of flora and fauna hides an impossible path). It wasn’t easy getting this right — the exceptional quality of the gin sets a rather high bar — but we got there in the end. Working with such beautiful ingredients was a treat – and the monkeys were pretty good too, when they behaved themselves.”
Murielle Dessenis, Global VP Marketing Gins at The Absolut Group, says: “Since its launch almost 15 years ago, MONKEY 47’s masterful craftsmanship and eccentric personality has gained the attention of bartenders and gin lovers across the world. Always looking to surprise, it relentlessly creates and explores non-conformist ways to bring the brand to life. It believes that great stories can transport us to another world – but can also trigger the imagination more deeply, if the story is a bit wild, too. This is why it is evolving to a refreshed brand world with timeless foundations so that it remains true to its origins. We think it’s most certainly wunderbar!”
Ludivine Catrice, Creative Strategy & Design Director Pernod Ricard says: “Monkey 47 is born from the Black Forest, a mischievous marvel that captures the eccentricity of our world and celebrates the unexpected inventions. Partnering with the talented Annie Atkins was a true honour and pleasure, allowing us to translate this authentic connection to eccentricity into a refreshed Brand World. Staying true to our timeless foundations, this evolution invites us to craft new and unusual stories that become the desired currency for eccentric adventurers today, inspiring them to also imagine their own.”
MONKEY 47 was launched by spirits entrepreneur Alexander Stein in 2010 after he discovered the mysterious tale of British RAF officer Monty Collins, a monkey called Max and a recipe for an equally curious gin made in Germany’s Black Forest. Seeking a new adventure and inspired by this discovery, Alexander embarked on a journey to fulfil his ambition to hand-distil something special. After obsessing over the recipe for over two years he subsequently defied conventional processes to deliver a perfectly crafted and award-winning gin of the highest quality.
Source: MONKEY 47
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