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handcrafted spirit

business problem

For nearly 30 years, the Kentucky Bourbon Festival has brought bourbon lovers to Bardstown to celebrate the history, culture and craftsmanship behind Kentucky bourbon. Every year, the festival commissions a commemorative poster—but previous designs largely followed the same photographic, headline-driven formula. KBF needed something that could make its annual poster feel as distinctive and collectible as bourbon itself.

human truth

Bourbon isn’t just something you drink. It’s something you hunt, collect and appreciate. It’s about craftsmanship, history and the human hands behind the finished product. So why should the festival poster feel mass-produced?

bch strategy

We went back to the roots of bourbon—and made the poster the old-fashioned way. Instead of photography and a big theme line, we created a handcrafted, two-color woodcut illustration featuring playful bourbon references like white dog, a whiskey thief and rack houses. Then we took the idea all the way: the design was hand-carved into a wooden printing block and produced one by one on a 19th-century printing press, echoing the era when Kentucky’s bourbon industry was born. No clever headline was needed. Just the festival name, dates and artwork that told the story.

results

The poster immediately became something people wanted to own—not just something they wanted to see. Bourbon enthusiasts and festival collectors quickly snapped up the initial run of 125 hand-numbered, hand-pressed, artist-signed prints. Additional duplicate prints were made available for sale. The result: a festival poster that became a collectible piece of bourbon culture in its own right.