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Case study
A mead brand, built from the name up
Brand
Strategy
Website Design
Website Development
Creative
With the ready-to-drink market full of new players, drinkers are open to more than seltzers and craft brews. Enter Melo Mead, a new name on the Alberta liquor scene, reimagining what mead could be. We built the whole thing: the name, the brand, the packaging, the 3D product and the website.
Detail
Changing the perception of mead
Mead is the oldest drink there is, and it arrived carrying a lot of baggage: horned Vikings, honeycombs, goblets of sweet honey wine. Melo wanted none of that. They came to us with a better idea, a mead for right now, and almost nothing else. No name, no look, no website.
So we started at the very beginning. We helped name the company, then built the brand, the language and the whole world it lives in, all the way through to the can in your hand and the site you visit.
Field note
It started with a name
Before anything else there was the word: Melo. Warm, easy, a little sunlit. From there we built a full identity around it.
A rounded wordmark, a sunset palette pulled from real fruit, a Hobeaux and Rubik type pairing, and a voice that says celebrate the escape and means it.
Detail
Everything, end to end
This was a nuts-to-bolts build. We didn't pick up one piece of it, we made all of them:
- Naming, brand strategy and the full visual identity
- Logo, packaging and four illustrated can designs
- Brand language, tone of voice and the world around it
- 3D product renders modelled from the real cans
- A custom Next.js website with a live 3D can viewer
- Online infrastructure, a store locator and email capture
Detail
A world for every flavour
Each flavour got its own escape. Raspberry lemon opens on a rose-pink lake, peruvian mint and lime on a cool green coast, grapefruit jalapeño on a warm sandy shore, orange chai at golden hour.
One illustration system, four moods, all unmistakably Melo.
Field note
Built to move
The site had to feel like the brand: alive. We built it in Next.js with a real 3D can you can spin, sunset waves that flow as you scroll, and flavour worlds that animate into view.
Fast, custom, and made entirely in-house.
Measured outcomes
The numbers
A brand that earned its place on the shelf.
- International MUSE Award for packaging and branding
- Gold
- Alberta liquor stores in the first four months
- 37+
- signature flavours, each its own world
- 4
- designed, built and shipped in-house
- 100%
Detail
Our foot in the door
Melo was our first real step into food and beverage, and it opened the door. It let our team stretch across naming, illustration, packaging, 3D and code, and it showed what we can do when a client hands us a blank page and a lot of trust.
In their words
We are absolutely thrilled with the brand work that Paper Crane has done to help kickstart Melo. The creativity and attention to detail in every element, from the can designs to the engaging website, have truly set our brand apart in the market, and it's making a difference on in-store sales which is amazing. Working together was great.
Brendan Collins
Owner, Melo Mead
In closing
Celebrate the escape
From a single word to a brand on the shelf, Melo is Paper Crane doing what we love most: building a whole world from scratch, and having fun the whole way through.
