Hailing from an idyllic New England luxury destination and sold at a premium price point, Fishers Island Lemonade should be a luxury brand. However, the craft cocktail brand’s comms were focused primarily on functional claims about alcohol content and ingredients, blending into the background in the sea of other function-first drinks brands. To help Fishers Island Lemonade live up to its luxury status, TAVERN reimagined the brand’s VIS system to behave more like a luxury brand. 

Luxury brands don’t beg for attention, they command admiration by selling aspirational lifestyle first, function-second. With this approach in mind, TAVERN elevated photography within Fishers Island Lemonade’s VIS ID system through a lifestyle photoshoot that tapped into the brand’s Fishers Island heritage and provenance.

To capture the nostalgic and elevated, yet laid-back, spirit of Fishers Island, TAVERN took inspiration from vintage J Crew, Polo and LL Bean catalogs for the brand’s photoshoot. The shoot centered around a series of vignettes that paint a picture of a long weekend on Fishers Island, a stand-in for whatever familiar escape you might think of when you close your eyes and picture your own happy place. 

Each moment captured on the beach, at the farmstand, by the poolside, on a picnic serves to draw viewers in and transport them to a Fishers Island state of mind, wherever they are. Cans are always pictured in situ, never posed and out of context of the broader world. Sometimes the images are placed within a black, film-strip border echoing 90’s film stills from an editorial photoshoot. 

The new type system keeps with the editorial theme, using fonts and layouts fit for a fashion magazine. Trading the stacked logo mark found on the can, for a single-line version, optimized by the TAVERN team for legibility, ties the narrow serif headings back to the brand. Playful text frames surround certain images, like the signage one might see at a ferry or train station, on the way to your long weekend getaway. 

Grounding the new VIS in the brand’s existing assets, the TAVERN team elevated the design system, without losing the essence of the brand. The yellow and white stripes, so prominent in the original identity, were reimagined as a more subtle border along the top of certain images, as if looking out at the scene from under a striped beach umbrella. The island image from the can inspired a series of illustrations that are reminiscent of the nostalgic memorabilia one might find in a vacation destination gift shop. A FIL monogram borrows from the brand’s original logo to add more flexibility and depth to the system as a tertiary brand asset.

Tying it all together to translate this robust brand world into future comms, the TAVERN team created a new tagline for the brand: “Worth the Squeeze.” The line captures the idea that both Fishers Island, and its lemonade, are worth that little extra effort, time, etc. to get to such a luxurious indulgence.

The line translates into an evergreen brand platform that can act as a creative jumping-off point for consumer-facing content and comms: “Make ___ worth the squeeze.” Targeting consumers on their way to a weekend getaway, the line is paired with local vernacular and destinations, i.e.: “make Jitney-ing to Montauk worth the squeeze.” This further connects the brand to the idea of a long weekend, returning to your own familiar escape, whether that’s Fishers Island or someplace similar.