With Boston Beer Company’s latest release, design agency Thirst has peeled back the noise to create a punchy, pulpy identity for a hard juice brand that invites drinkers to ‘squeeze the most out of life’.
In the increasingly saturated world of ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages, Boston Beer Company and design studio Thirst have managed to bottle something fresh. Just Hard Squeezed is a hard juice that does away with fads, fizz, and fluff, opting instead for big flavour, real fruit, and a brand world that’s as juicy as its name suggests.
At first glance, the identity for Just Hard Squeezed is all bold colours, expressive type, and pulpy illustrations, but look closer and you’ll find a strategic discipline underpinning every decision. The brief was simple but specific: break free from boring rituals, appeal to taste-driven drinkers, and bring some zing to a market crowded with carbonated sameness.
To achieve this, Thirst built the entire brand around one central idea: Make Moments More Juicy. That phrase became what Associate Creative Director Glen Thorpe calls “an ethos for how the brand should behave.” He adds: “That mindset shaped everything: how it talks, how it moves, how it lands. It’s about squeezing every last drop out of every moment.”
A sense of immediacy is evident across every touchpoint. The wordmark is literally squeezed, with cartoon-like droplets bursting out of the type. Each flavour is colour-coded via these droplets, giving the packaging an intuitive cue that’s both functional and fun.
The illustrations, created in-house, amplify this energy, dialling up the fruit-forward personality and adding a sense of motion to the brand. Meanwhile, details like stickers inspired by produce aisle labels add a wink of personality without veering into pastiche.
“We approached it like flavour design,” says Glen. “Everything needed to feel as juicy as the product itself… The palette is bright but purposeful – pulled from fresh fruit stalls, nothing artificial. And the type and iconography are curved, inflated and full of ripeness. Even the quiet stuff has that pulpy, expressive quality.”
In a category where visual overload is the norm, the team knew they had to walk a fine line between playful and punchy, without tipping into cliché. That restraint is what gives Just Hard Squeezed its clarity. Every element has a job to do, and nothing is there just for decoration.
“We kept stripping it back until every element was doing one clear job – no more, no less,” says Glen. “If something didn’t add to the immediacy, it came out. That’s what helped us stay sharp.”
Visually, the identity nods to Pop Art and mid-century editorial ads – not as a gimmick, but as a stylistic toolkit. These references gave the team a graphic language that was both high-impact and full of attitude, while avoiding the overdone tropes of the RTD world.
“We leaned into Pop Art because it felt right attitudinally – expressive, playful, and direct,” Glen explains. “It gave us a way to build flavour and character without falling back on tired RTD tropes… We weren’t trying to go full vintage or retro – it was more about borrowing the charm, structure and energy, then cleaning it up and letting it breathe.”
That breathability comes through in the tone of voice as well. There’s a looseness and levity to the messaging – a welcome antidote to the overly earnest tone so common in drinks branding. It’s a brand that doesn’t try to sell you a lifestyle, just a really good time.
Photography also plays a starring role. Rather than static, glossy product shots, the visuals aim to capture the drink in its natural habitat: with friends, in motion, and unfiltered. Fruit takes centre stage, often shown in fun, slightly subversive ways – a visual reminder that this is a drink made with real juice, not just artificial flavourings and false promises.
From logo to lifestyle, Thirst’s work on Just Hard Squeezed is a lesson in balance. It’s unafraid to be loud but never shouts for the sake of it. It’s confident in its clarity and, most of all, it delivers on the promise in its name, squeezing every last drop of potential from the product and the brand.
In a crowded category, it’s not easy to stand out, but with Just Hard Squeezed, Thirst hasn’t just found a way in and carved out a juicy new lane of their own.
