Branding a Biotech Company — Omega Yeast Labs

Every beer you drink requires yeast during the brewing process. Different yeast strains yield different flavor profiles and styles of beer. That’s where Omega Yeast comes in. Based in Chicago and St. Louis, Omega Yeast grows over 75 strains of liquid yeast for Probrewers and Homebrewers. They’re known for propagating ultra fresh yeast that gives consistent results, as well as their one-of-a-kind strains you can’t find anywhere else. After gaining popularity in their regional market, Omega hired us to redesign their brand identity and position them on a national scale.

“Kyle not only crafted beautiful works of art for us with his innate (and insane) talents but always did so in the most friendly, professional, and humble manner. He took the time and patience to get to know us and understand our business so that he was able to perfectly bring our values, voice, and personality visually to life. We absolutely could not be happier having worked with Kyle.”

Mark Schwarz — Co-Founder, Omega Yeast

Rather than focusing on the science behind the process, we came up with the tagline, “Craft Yeast for Craft Brews” and took a more artful approach. During the exploration phase, we were inspired by an idea to use Omega’s yeast to create textures and graphics which ultimately became the foundation of the brand image. We activated the yeast by mixing a warm sugar water solution with India ink to create 15 ‘yeast paintings.’ We contrasted the paintings with clean backgrounds and bold type, balancing professionalism with the raw nature of the craft beer world.

For the new logo, we designed a letter ‘O’ (for Omega) with a budding yeast cell. We also created a set of ‘budding’ graphics that are used through the identity on things like posters, interior graphics and apparel. When they’re all put together, they form a graphic take on what scientists see under the microscope.