Art for Beer; Beer for Art; Beer Art!

       Congratulations to the winner of our logo contest!
March 13, 2015

Houston, we have a winner
After many hours of over-thinking and back and forth, we have selected the winning logo design as pictured above. This was NOT an easy task because so many of you sent in excellent ideas. Indeed, our team of brewers, spouses, and mentors could not unanimously agree! Enough with the hoopla! The winner is....

Dee Ann Lange of Dog Gone Creative, LLC from Kirkwood, Missouri! Not only is she incredibly talented, she was extremely patient with Phil's demanding requests and re-requests (and re-re-requests!). We love this design because it accomplishes everything we wanted: a distressed edge to represent our own rough edges, a modern font that shows how contemporary we are, and the fingerprint that shows we put our mark on our beers and on the Ozarks.

Here is a brief evolution of the winning design:

And here are more designs which Dee Ann submitted that are equally amazing:

Finally, Dee Ann received a membership package for her winning design!

Honorable mentions
We said there were many wonderful submissions, and below are some of the ones that we really liked and the names of the designers. Please note that some of these are rough sketches, but we could see the diamonds inside, and we think you will too. Some of you were worried that you didn't have the talent, but I think the below proves that is far from the truth. Others told me they didn't have good graphics software, but they did a fantastic job not even considering the software they were using!

Without further ado, and in alphabetical order by first name:

Allen Hampton
Allen submitted several wonderful and intricate designs. This one excited us the most. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the oak leaf.

Ali Dexter
Not only did Ali come up with this cool concept, she also submitted cool taglines. I suspect we'll see more of her creativity in the future! I just loved this concept and her tag, "Local Roots, Remarkable Flavors". I got to meet Ali in person because she wanted to go over some ideas. I could tell she was onto more wonderful ones!

Brian Howell
I had the pleasure of meeting Brian in person, and he's a nice guy with a wonderful sense of design (just look at what he does for the Ozarks Horse Trader). He's a West Plains native, and has mad design skills.

Bryan Shaner
Bryan - a tattoo artist at All For One Tattoo out of Gray Summit, MO - submitted one of the first designs we received.

Daniel Bradshaw
Daniel of Birch Tree and I had several back and forth messages for this design. We really like his "Wages" script as well as the bobcat silhouette and the coloring.

Jeremy Harrison of Imperial Graphics
Jeremy was kind enough to submit this intricate design. If you need local printing or graphics work, you should check out Imperial Graphics. Tell him Phil sent ya!

Jerry McCabe
Jerry is a professional graphics designer out of St. Louis and happens to be Amber's cousin. He submitted several variations of this design, and we liked this one the best because of the little cougar head @ bottom center.

Jessica Nease
I really loved this design that Jessica came up with. I can envision all sorts of ways to exploit this periodic table of elements idea.

Michelle DeWitt of FreakyDeaky Designs (X3!)
Michelle - of FreakyDeakyDesigns of Clever, Missouri - spent a lot of time working with us, and she sent a ton of wonderful designs. She was a pleasure to work with: a true pro. Her chalk design was among the top three of our choices (though we had some passionate voices for the possum design!). These are just 3 of the ones we really liked. 

Mike McHenry (also X3!)
Mike - of Studio 1900 in Willow Springs - submitted some really funny designs incorporating images of Phil and Amber. I hope we can acquire his original art which we could display in the brewery. But the third one (wood burned barrel) was in the top 3 of the designs we seriously considered. Incidentally, I got to meet Mike at Brewfest last week, and he seems like an awesome guy!

We like statistical informations

• 52 artists & graphic designers signed up for our artist email list

• 20 of them submitted designs

• Over 121 files containing probably 200 or more logos were submitted!

• Around 24 designs tweaks were requested

• 1 winner was selected

What's the future hold for art contests?
So many things change from day to day, so I can't make any promises. Caveat out of the way, I do believe we will have beer label design contests in the future. I can not say when for it greatly depends on when we need labels. That might be some time from now because we do not intend to package our beer at first. Instead, we will run as a brewpub serving all of our beer right from the brewery. In time, we will get kegs in and around West Plains' restaurants, and then we'll bottle limited edition types of beers (think: sours, barrel aged, barleywine, etc). But when the day comes that we are ready to package cases of our standards (Whatknot, Good Mornin' Stout, Landlocked IPA, and so on), we will be sure to get in contact with you all.

Until then, cheers!

Phil Wages
Wages Brewing Company™
The middle of nowhere never tasted so good!™

The stuff below already happened...

       A letter from Phil
January 1, 2015

Thanks for your interest in our contest! I'm Phil Wages, founder of Wages Brewing Company (opening in 2015 in West Plains, Missouri). We are all about our local community, and we have this idea in our heads that through friendly competition, we can now and forever involve local artists in the designing of our logo and future artwork. So we are reaching out to everyone in the Ozarks to have our logo designed. I imagine this is a new endeavor for you; it certainly is for us!

Our goal is to end up with a symbol or emblem that is instantly recognizable, brand-like, and simple. It must evoke the emotion of what WBCo is all about. Below are full details about the contest including details of what we would like, samples of things we do/don't like, and other inspiring remarks.

Beyond that sort of information, I want you to know that we will be, first and foremost, the local neighborhood brew pub. We will grow to make an enormous variety of beers that are each unique and supremely different from one another including everything from easy drinking yet flavorful beers to stouts and IPAs to Belgians and sours. We'll seek to use as many local ingredients as possible including experimenting with native and wild grown ingredients (Morel Mushroom Brown? Persimmon Ale?). One a weekly basis, there will be different beers to try as well as regulars that are always available. In short, this is an artistic artisan endeavor.

We find inspiration for our beer and in our lives anywhere, and for evoking your design, you should too.

Obviously, there can be only one winner, but we hope this works out well, and if so, we will have future contests as we need more graphics including beer labels. Best of luck to all of you!

Cheers
Phil Wages

P.S. I know there's a lot of information below. But it really is worth at least one good read so that you are properly focused on this wonderful project. And I know there will be a lot of great submissions, and I believe you will find your edge hidden inside my verbosity. 

       First Up, We Need a Logo
We've seen dozens upon dozens of ideas, but they aren't the right fit. So we want local artists to "find" our logo and submit their ideas for it. The more ideas, the better. We very much encourage initial rough sketches and unrefined Photoshop graphics. We would love to receive a large quantity of options and work our way to the one logo to rule them all.

After February 1st, 2015, we will choose what we like best, and the winning designer will receive a cash prize - depending on many factors, in the range of $200 to $500 - as well as special artist membership to the brewery. We'll announce on Facebook and via press release who the winner is. Who knows? It may lead to fame and fortune! Or at least a few local craft beers. ;)

If this works out for the logo, then we will periodically have additional art competitions for individual beer label art (such as Front Porch Porter, Landlocked IPA, Good Mornin' Stout, etc), and we'll have similar prizes to award to the artist we choose for each label.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves! First, we need our logo!

       What We are Looking For
We want a simple symbol or emblem that evokes "Wages Brewing". Words that come to mind include creative, hardworking, farming, organic, unique, Ozarks, experimental, and fun. Our motto is "The middle of nowhere never tasted so good!", and that perfectly explains what we're about. We just need the logo that goes along with that. But we don't "just need a logo". No no! We need something that is enduring, perhaps on the verge of epic. Something that makes you think "That's just a really cool logo. I would wear that/drink from that glass/want to buy that hat/whatever." Something that people see on the shelf and it makes them think "I have to try that beer!"

Our name does need to be included. Forms of our business name include (but don't be limited by):
Wages Brewing Company
Wages Brewing Co
Wages Brew Co
WBCo
(NOTE: We won't use "WBC" because it reminds us of the "Westboro Baptist Church", an association we can't have).

OPTIONAL: We would prefer to incorporate "West Plains, MO" somehow (though we can add that ourselves if it doesn't fit within your design).

       Useful Scribbles
We do NOT want a bunch of hops and grains in the design. If you have an awesome idea with it, go ahead and submit it. Maybe we are wrong! But we're just not feeling the hops/grains logo design. It's too traditional.

We like the "slightly rough" or "worn" look, but that is not a requirement.

Added 1/2/2015: Please, no dollar signs or cash or coins. I know the play on "Wages" is totally a fun idea, but we don't want to incorporate money into our logo as it sends the wrong message.

Added 1/4/2015: Some things to think about:
*chalkboard
*rough, sketchy designs
*fun
And know this: We will sell upscale beers, but we are not hoity-toity. We want people to look at our logo and think, "Man, this looks like a fun place with exceptionally high quality beers!".

Added 1/4/2015: We've been asked about colors. I'm not real beholden to anything specific. My personal favorite colors are green and red. Amber loves purple. But I've read that red and orange grab the eyes really well which is important. Imagine going into a beer store and seeing 100 different bottles on the shelf. How is the average person going to decide what to buy? They'll have to go with what catches their eye, so I tend to think about red and orange for that aspect. However, when we are branding individual beers, we may choose to change the color scheme of the logo based on the style of beer.

As previously mentioned, we are first and foremost about being local. The Ozarks is our home, and we want to keep the Ozarks as our most important group of customers. If we can get beer to people further away, great! But that's not our main goal.

I'm going to strongly encourage you to submit as many samples as you can. We've already seen 30 or more completely different designs from friends and professionals already, and none have fully clicked with what we want. So please submit as much as you can and want to. And remember that it doesn't matter how refined it is.

Here is a group of logos we like, and we can send you more upon request:

       Need Some More Guidance?
We don't want to stifle the creative spirit, so we're trying to leave our guidelines somewhat vague, but if you need further info to spark your creative genius, just let us know and we can give you more insights, answer questions, and even give examples of what we do like. Also, we don't want to be negative about other breweries' logos, so we have not publicly posted designs we do not like, but we will send them to you privately if you request it by email to [email protected].

       Prizes
The prizes was cash and an Artist Brewery Membership. Email us for the details.

       Eligibility
Anyone aged 21 or older may enter. Employees and their immediate families are not eligible to participate. Any individual U.S. citizen or U.S.-based company may submit.

      Submission Guidelines
Computer Files: Preferably, very high resolution, like 12" x 12" and 300+ dpi, vector-based with layers, between Photoshop 6 and CS4 or compatible. Ultimately, we need something that can be printed and scaled for really large print areas. The logo will be used online, in print, on merchandise, etc. Flexibility is a key requirement, including the need to resize easily (hence the need for a vector-based graphic) and to look good in black and white as well as color. Again, the final version of the logo will need to be suitable for high quality printing.

If you can't provide a file like that, please DO still participate! Remember this is why the cash prize amount is between $200 and $500 (see above).

You can submit as many designs as you wish. Of course, there can be only one winner!

You can submit designs at any time until the end of the competition (2/1/2015). If you would like, I'd be happy to tell you if a design won't win so that you can submit another (or several more!). We also reserve the right to work with entrants on their designs upon request or at our inclination. Why? Say we like something, but it needs to be just a tad different to really be what we want. After all, we must be sure we are getting the best logo possible.

You must submit at least one signed copy of the signed disclaimer form. It can be printed out or scanned and emailed (but it must have been signed).

       How to Enter
You must submit at least one signed disclaimer form for your design(s) to be considered. Failure to do so will disqualify you from the contest.

You can submit art and the signed disclaimer form in any of these ways:

• sketches or completed original art delivered in person (to set up a time, contact Phil or WBCo via Facebook or email; sorry, we can't take calls due to daytime work schedules, but you can supply your phone number and a good time to call you back)
   

• scan of art or digital design via email to [email protected]
   

• via the regular mail to:
  Wages Brewing Company
  Attn: Logo
  P.O. Box 155
  West Plains, MO 65775

Do NOT send photographs unless the intention is to convert your design into art or a digital design. In the end, it must be artwork or a digital design.

Entries must conform to the Submission Guidelines set out below. Entries which fail to do so may be rejected or if it is the winning entry, the cash prize will be lower (see above "Prizes").

The deadline for Entries is 11:59 PM CT (midnight) on February 1st, 2015.

We will attempt to acknowledge all entries within one week of receipt; however, we cannot be responsible for entries or responses lost in transit.

There is no fee to enter.

       Other Rules and Legal Small Print
In the event we want more than one of the designs submitted, the cash prize may be divided up between them. We also may consider picking "runner-ups", and we reserve the right to post our favorite designs (winner and non-winner) via social media (including but not limited to Facebook). We reserve the right to add a "contest results" section on our website and social media, and if we display your design, we will happily link to your website or Facebook page if you would like.

We will announce the winner via press release to social media and news sources as well as beer community sources. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can ask us to keep your name anonymous, and we will respect that, but we think it would be good publicity for you!

If your design is not selected as the winner or a runner-up, we may still use it in the future at an unknown time. If so, similar prizes of cash and membership will be awarded and of course, that artist will be announced and recognized.

Added 1/4/2015: In the event we do not receive a design we want to go with, no winner will be selected, or we may offer a consolation prize to the best design, even if we choose to continue looking for our logo. That is, we reserve the right to only pick a winner if we find the logo we really want to use.

This page was written and distributed on January 1st, 2015. In the event we need to add to or amend this page, we will make note of changes such as "Added 1/4/15" followed by the addition, and we will notify entrants by email of any significant changes. If you are not already on our artists email list, please send an email to [email protected] and we will add you. We will not be responsible if you do not see any amendments to this page.

See the signed disclaimer form for legal small print and be sure to fill out the form and sign it and get that to us along with your submission(s)!