Brasserie Léman
Beer label system for Brasserie Léman, a craft brasserie from Lausanne, Switzerland. Four-variant packaging design — Blonde, Blanche, Rouge, Noire — by SQRL.
Brasserie Léman is a craft brasserie from Lausanne, Switzerland — named after Lac Léman, the body of water that defines the city and the region. The brief was to create a label system for four expressions: Blonde, Blanche, Rouge, and Noire. The brand needed to feel rooted in Swiss-French heritage without leaning on alpine clichés, and premium enough to sit confidently on a restaurant table as well as a bar shelf.
Designing a multi-variant label system that holds together as a family while giving each expression a distinct identity is a systems problem as much as a design one. The risk with colour-coded ranges is that they become generic — differentiated only by a colour swap, with no real logic holding them together. The additional challenge here was tone: Swiss-French culture sits at the intersection of precision and elegance, and the label needed to reflect that without becoming cold or corporate.
A single structural device anchors the system — a curved horizon line dividing each label into a dominant colour field above and a cream ground below. The colour field carries the expression identity: gold for Blonde, warm grey for Blanche, deep red for Rouge, near-black for Noire. The LÉMAN wordmark sits large in the colour field across all four, consistent in weight and position. The expression name lives in the cream zone, set in a confident sans, flanked by a pair of gold rules and a diamond mark that reappears across the range as a quiet signature detail. The back labels mirror the front structure, using the same curved horizon and colour coding to make the system readable from both sides.
A coherent four-variant system that reads as a family on shelf while giving each expression its own clear identity. The label structure is flexible enough to extend to additional expressions without breaking the system. The renders were placed against Lake Geneva with the Alps behind — the location doing the final work of rooting the brand in its place.
