NGBD Facade Concept

Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery

Property Design

Photoshop

As the distillery’s Creative Director I was in a position to give opinions on all creative decisions that were being proposed by the executive staff, and there were many. The concept image above was my response to one such proposal. Today, along with the Green Brier logo seen in the center, there are also two other large text-heavy murals that flank both ends of the logo. With all of this right on the face of the building, it was suggested that we also add a 12 ft vinyl decal of a bourbon bottle to the center-most garage door to inform people that we made Belle Meade Bourbon. My opinion was that with all of these separate elements scattered without intention our building would end up looking like a middle school student’s binder adorned with stickers.

My suggestion was to bring intentionality to the facade of the building. I expressed the theory that everything the customer sees should be there with the purpose of welcoming them into a place of excellence, professionalism, and creativity.

I started by painting the right third of the building to match the rest of the building (to this day it is still a different color). Next, I brought the focus back to the brand’s logo by removing the murals to the left and right of it. Because they wanted to feature Belle Meade Bourbon, I made it the statement piece of the first third of the building, effectively creating one of four photo opportunities on the outside of the building alone. Other photo opportunities include a large mural of the word Nashville, and a large mural of an original TN Whiskey ad from the 1800s painted on the right. There are other smaller details that I believed would bring added value to the guest experience that is noted in the image above.

While this concept was received positively these changes were unfortunately not able to be implemented. On the bright side, this mockup was successful in communicating the power of intentional design to the executive team, and they ended up agreeing that a randomly placed vinyl sticker of a whiskey bottle was not advantageous to the brand.