paapi

2023

Kari Beverages Pvt. Ltd.
(West Bengal, India)

Nomenclature, Brand Identity, Packaging Design, Illustration, 3D Visualisation

Beer was never the idea. Friendship was.

Craft beer has a habit of talking about itself, brewing methods, hop varieties, tasting notes and alcohol percentages often become the centre of the conversation. PAAPI set out to celebrate something else entirely: the people sitting around the table. Built around late-night confessions, terrible dance moves, bad decisions and stories that somehow get funnier every time they're told, the ambition wasn't to create another premium craft beer brand, but a personality people would remember long before they remembered what was inside the can.

The brief was to develop a complete brand identity and packaging design system that broke away from familiar craft beer clichés. From the naming and logo to the typography, colour palette, illustrations and packaging, every touchpoint was designed to feel loud, approachable and unapologetically playful. Instead of borrowing from traditional brewery aesthetics, the identity leaned into oversized typography, expressive layouts, bold colour blocking and a logo that behaved more like a character than a symbol, creating a visual language that felt energetic, social and unmistakably human.

Despite progressing through strategy, branding, packaging, presentations, brand registration and even a full-scale photoshoot, PAAPI never made it to market. Business realities beyond design brought the project to a halt, turning it into a graveyard project, fully realised, deeply considered, but never launched.

Even so, PAAPI remains one of those rare branding projects where strategy, storytelling and visual identity came together effortlessly. Sometimes great design isn't measured by sales or shelf space. Sometimes the idea is simply too good to stay buried in an archive.