Case Study
Big Island Booch Kombucha
A long-term brand partnership supporting growth from local favorite to statewide market leader.
Introduction
Big Island Booch is a Hawaii-based beverage company specializing in kombucha and jün and known for its tropical flavors, local sourcing, and vibrant brand personality.
When we began working together in 2016, the brand was at a pivotal moment—preparing for organic certification, expanding production, and positioning itself for increased retail visibility.
Before Our Collaboration
Big Island Booch relied on a hand-drawn logo featuring a tattoo-style scoby illustration, and packaged their products in salad-dressing style bottles.
While charming and well-loved locally, their main competitors on store shelves were imported national brands, and their packaging lacked the professional standards needed to compete with them.
The Challenge
The company needed a brand identity that:
• Matched or exceeded the polish of national competitors
• Retained the loyalty of their local following
• Established a strong shelf presence statewide
• Supported growth into Costco and other major retailers
• Could scale across bottles, cans, merch, digital assets, and future product lines
Strategic Approach
To build a brand capable of competing at a national level while preserving its personality and Hawaiian authenticity, I began with in-store research of category leaders and direct competitors. This helped identify both visual conventions within the kombucha category and opportunities for differentiation.
What emerged was a clear direction rooted in Big Island Booch’s existing identity—bold, energetic, and expressive—rather than a departure from it. The brand’s visual language was refined and structured, drawing inspiration from tattoo culture, mandalas, and symbolic forms, while introducing a level of polish necessary for broader retail environments.
Design decisions were made with scalability in mind, ensuring the system could extend beyond a single label or format and support future growth across products and channels.
Key strategic decisions included:
• Establishing black-dominant branding to stand apart from competitors’ bright, white-heavy packaging
• Refining the original illustrated mascot into a mandala-inspired logo with greater balance and clarity
• Introducing metallic accents to add depth and shelf impact
• Designing a custom “Made in Hawaii” insignia to emphasize their edge over imported products
• Creating a flavor-forward color system that scales fluidly across SKUs
Implementation and Brand System
Over the course of more than eight years, the Big Island Booch brand has expanded well beyond its original packaging. As the company grew, I developed and managed a complete visual ecosystem designed to support new products, formats, and environments while maintaining continuity.
Rather than treating each new initiative as a standalone project, the brand system was applied and adapted across every touchpoint—allowing the identity to evolve without losing recognition or coherence.