Millworks

Located right in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg, The Millworks Brewery has tapped into the rich heritage and bright future of an area undergoing a major Renaissance—and the team has gone all-in on embracing and sustaining the rejuvenation of the town they love.

They’re creators at heart who are hell-bent on helping others create magic: Their menu is filled with local farms’ ingredients, each with its own backstory, and their beautiful former-wood-mill digs have found new life as studio space for incredible local artists to work and show off the fruits of their labor. They’re passionate about taking the past and revitalizing it into a new and meaningful experience, and we wanted to help them bring their story to life.

20nine’s charge: Create packaging for their inaugural bottled beer. To us, the design approach was obvious. We had to highlight the Midtown Harrisburg area in an authentic, artistic way, tapping into the heritage that made the place so special.

Inspired by the old wood mill they call home, we carved and illustrated a custom linocut piece showing a panoramic and expressive representation of the neighborhood—the Broad Street Market across the way (which happens to be one of the oldest farmer’s markets in the country), the local farms that provide the fresh and delicious ingredients for their menu, and the historic architecture and mountainous landscape surrounding Midtown Harrisburg.

The illustration was applied across the board to their bottle labels, box labels (12-pack and 6-pack), and a beer fest tent. We went simple to let the illustration shine, keeping the packaging black-and-white with color pops to designate each type of beer. Each different beer’s label also focuses on a different area of the full linocut illustration, which is shown in all its glory on the box labels. We made sure our design system was easily customizable for personal variety packs and any new beers The Millworks might release.