Old Fitzgerald Bottled-In-Bond
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, MOTION GRAPHICS
With 120 years of heritage, Old Fitzgerald had become beloved yet increasingly unattainable. The challenge: reconnect with a broader audience without diminishing its exclusivity.
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Introduce the 7-Year Bottled-in-Bond as an ultra-premium yet attainable expression. Anchor the brand in hospitality and timeless style, through an “elevated nostalgia” aesthetic.
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Distinctive assets—sash, shield, key, and bottle—became bold design tools across digital, social, print, and retail. Retro-inspired photography, curated sets, and film-like treatments gave the campaign a modern vintage voice. The tagline “The Pleasure Is Ours” carried hospitality across every touchpoint.
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Old Fitzgerald re-emerged as aspirational and approachable. Engagement rose across digital and retail, securing relevance with new audiences and reaffirming the brand’s place in the ultra-premium bourbon space.
I championed the initial aesthetic devices used throughout the imagery such as the subtle sparkle accents to evoke a vintage, cinematic feel that highlighted glass, metal, and liquid surfaces in a way that added timeless charm and refinement to the imagery.
I created the testing and explorative iterations that led to the final effect for the painterly visual treatment to give the campaign a timeless, art-inspired quality. Subtle grain added texture, softness brought atmosphere, and careful color grading balanced tone, sharpening, and smoothing. The result was imagery that felt rich, cinematic, and elevated.
I collaborated with brand teams, client partners, and internal design leads to create a guide that codified the campaign’s visual and verbal identity—from photography and lighting to color, typography, hierarchy, layout, patterns, and textures. The result was a toolkit that made the brand’s ethos of gracious hospitality repeatable and scalable.
We modernized the timeless charm of Old Fitzgerald’s 1950s–60s print heritage through a painterly aesthetic that blended contemporary scenes with vintage warmth. A rich palette of deep greens, bold reds, opulent golds, and vibrant turquoise accents set the tone for an immersive atmosphere of sophisticated indulgence.
We created a system of patterns and textures that carried seamlessly from packaging and print to digital and social, giving the brand a consistent yet flexible visual language across every touchpoint. Each look was concepted, tested, and then brought to life in collaboration with set designers and stylists — extending into wallpaper, velvet bag embellishments, bespoke coasters, and branded scarves and apparel.
I oversaw Art Direction and Editing for the YouTube media placement :06 bumper cut, distilling the campaign into a concise, high-impact format. Through careful pacing, framing, and motion accents, the spot captured Old Fitzgerald’s premium aesthetic and achieved a 95% completion rate on YouTube — outperforming category benchmarks.
On social, the campaign came to life through a series of short-form videos and motion assets. Each piece emphasized slow, intentional movement — the swirl of a cocktail, the lift of a glass, the glow of candlelight. We tailored formats for stories, reels, and paid placements, ensuring the work felt native to the platform while still carrying the premium, cinematic look of the master campaign.
I created the Old Fitzgerald website as a digital home for the brand’s heritage and hospitality ethos. I shaped the site’s design system — from typography and brand colors to imagery and motion — to ensure a seamless user experience that felt both premium and timeless. Working closely with developers and producers, I helped bring the platform to life, anchoring the campaign and extending the brand’s elevated identity online.
Collaborators
Agency: Method 1
ECD: David Muldoon
CD: Jess Bennett
ACD: Harrison Weathers
Photographer: Chelsea Kyle
Stylist: Erica Lutz
Food Stylist: Drew Aichele