Coming off a successful first year setting the bar on craft beer art in San Diego and beyond, Craft Beerd is ready to reveal the brand new 2014 San Diego Beer Matrix print – The most popular design through his first year in business, back and stronger than ever before. We have the new print and some words from the man himself, Mr. Rudy Pollorena Jr.
Coming off a rock solid first year of business in San Diego, Rudy Pollorena Jr. and his craft beer art business Craft Beerd are gearing up for an even stronger second year. Leading into the new year, Craft Beerd is set to reveal the second edition of his most popular design to date – The San Diego Beer Matrix. Here at Three B Zine, we could not be more excited to work with Craft Beerd to help him reveal the brand new San Diego Beer Matrix.
Every San Diego craft brewery name comes to life on the new print, exploding out in black and white lettering from the stunning sea of blue. There are many new additions to the 2014 San Diego Beer Matrix print, some subtle some not. We could explain the new print ourselves, but why when the artist himself can tell you all about it.
“Introducing the new 2014 SD Beer Matrix. A design which embodies the soul of the original, green, Matrix released last year, but with a lot more breweries, this new design takes its own form. You can feel the new iteration was brewed from the same artist, but it now has it’s own defining color and bold ‘SD’ centerpiece sandwiched with ‘Craft Beer’. Making the statement of wearing this design bolder than ever before.
The rounded font edges, along with the DENSE typography is guided by blackened first letters of every brewery name to help guide the eye into discovering the breweries on the piece. Details such as the San Diego skyline built into the centered pint glass give it an even more defining edge, proudly representing this city. The baby fermenters help drive the essence of the brewing culture found in the very breweries this design is built upon. Small grain silhouette details help bind the context of the piece while cleverly filling the ‘white space’ much like the mini-pint glasses did of the original matrix. I am stoked on the way this version came out.”
How did the idea for the original San Diego Beer Matrix come to be?
I was at a time in my life where I was bored with the graphic design themes I was doing at the time, for freelance. So I decided to do something craft beer specific to hold my interest and played around with a typographical layout of most of the breweries that were around at the time…then, it took form and came to be.
When first revealed to the public, how often did the design need to be updated and changed to reflect the always growing San Diego craft beer scene, and how often do you plan to update it moving forward?
Once it was revealed to the public, I never updated it again. This was in Late Feb. I already had been updating as I went along but had to make a cutoff point to get it out, otherwise, it would have never been released.
I plan on updating about once a year, only *if* there are enough new breweries from the last iteration to the next to warrant an update, hence the lack of a year stamp so the piece on its own, could be timeless if you will and not bound to a specific date.
Just off the top of your head, what are some of the new names on the latest matrix design?
Barrel Harbor, Booze Bros., Border X, Legacy, Groundswell and even breweries that just barely missed the cut last year, Butcher’s & Intergalactic!
How many San Diego locations currently house the Beer Matrix print?
This is better served letting others play the game and tell me how many they find 🙂
Do you prefer that locations update to the current Beer Matrix when available?
I prefer locations to do as they feel! The locations that do house the original matrix are awesome and I am thankful for that. If they choose to get the new piece, they will up their awesomeness even further. The goal is to get the new piece in as many locations as possible, so I am all ears to any requests sent my way!
Aside from the brand new San Diego Beer Matrix art, what are some of the other great things we can look forward to from Craft Beerd?
I’m always on the lookout for collaborations for custom designs with San Diego based breweries, but now, I would love to collaborate with breweries outside of SD. I am also working on releasing new products to add more depth beyond tees & art prints to the Craft Beerd tap list of products. Since Craft Beerd is a beer art brand and not a clothing brand as some may be led to believe, I really have the freedom of putting beer art on anything my mind brews up. Sign up for the newsletter on www.craftbeerd.com or follow me on Instagram (@craftbeerd) or Facebook for updates galore. Cheers.
To purchase/pre-order the 2014 San Diego Beer Matrix or any prints in the Craft Beerd catalog, make sure to visit the official website.