Can we let you in on a little secret? We wanted a logo that was captivating and unique enough that it’d make people stop and think. Since we often find ourselves playing guess our logo with our customers, you could say we’ve accomplished just that!
The guess we get most often is that it’s some kind of exclamation point. And really, we’ll give half credit for that answer because it’s a good guess! And it’s half right! But the real story is even better.
Okay, first there’s something you should know. The dudes behind Montford Misfits are some pretty badass snowboarders. (That gives you a pretty good logo clue, just sayin’.) In their free time (you know, when they’re not attending beer festivals, and it’s the right season), Brian and ÅJ can typically be found creatively cruising down a mountain.
See them in action!
#TeezerReprise - "Still Waiting" from ArchitectJ on Vimeo.
Well, the two friends inadvertently stumbled into the inspiration for the logo on the slopes.
The scene: Beech mountain.
ÅJ, who will admit he’s addicted to sick jumps, decided to attempt jumping over an enormous ball and nailed it. Luckily, Brian was following close behind with the GoPro and caught the footage.
After each trip, ÅJ edits all the clips together to create awesome videos like the one embedded in this post. Well, in the editing process, he locked in on the frame from his jump over the ball, and he and Brian agreed it looked pretty cool. This image gave them the idea for their logo, but it wasn’t until a few weeks later that they found the piece to complete the concept.
Fast forward a couple weeks and the friends, accompanied by their buddies Tommy and Xan, were back at Beech Mountain for a competition. They were given one hour to practice jumps and tricks, and those dudes practiced hard! So hard, in fact, that they competed horribly because they were totally worn out.
It wasn’t a total loss, though, because the event had a professional photographer who snapped photos of the entire day, including the practice runs. So when the competition was over, someone mentioned that the photographer was going to post the images to the Beech Mountain website.
Well, the photographer ended up posting four images of each of the four guys. Among the photos was one image of ÅJ in the midst of a shifty. When the guys saw it, they knew it was the perfect image to compliment their original logo inspiration.
If you take a good look at the logo now, you’ll see that it’s a man on a snowboard nailing a shifty over a giant ball. (We can practically hear your ooooooooh from here.)
And now that you know, you’ll never unsee it!
Keep up with the Misfits on Facebook and Instagram!
Did you know that the Montford Misfits are a creative design team that specialize in craft beer maps and custom artwork? Grab a map for yourself today! (They make pretty sick gifts too, just sayin’.)
]]>ÅJ and Brian had an idea for a business, and they brought their two friends, PJ and Davis, in on it.
The idea: T-shirts sporting goofy, sarcastic comments. Think Life is Good, but less PG.
The foursome were all in one of those instant voice messaging groups together. Does anyone remember HeyTell? Basically, it was an app where you could send instant voice messages to your friends or a select group of friends like a digital walkie talkie.
ÅJ, who started their group, initially named it after their favorite football teams (Bills, Steelers, Patriots, etc) in rotation. But eventually, the names got more creative. PJ would usually pop up in the afternoons asking where are my assholes at? That would prompt the four to start talking shit to one another. ÅJ, in observation, realized: we’re a bunch of angry assholes. So, of course, he had to change the group name!
But ÅJ, Brian, PJ, and Davis usually spent their evenings making their way up and down Montford, hitting their favorite spots. It became their ritual; Montford, their stomping grounds. It wasn’t uncommon for Angry Ales to close down around them, the barkeep locking the door behind the group as they all walked out for the night.
So when they started brainstorming names for the sarcastic t-shirt company, they had some juicy contenders from their various HeyTell group names. But there was one particular name that seemed to fit perfectly.
Now, Montford Dr. in Charlotte, NC features casual hot spots just outside the South Park neighborhood. Its standard crowd consists of young twenty-somethings boozing it up and stumbling from bar to bar. But these four, in their late twenties (okay, maybe even early thirties) didn’t quite fit in. One evening ÅJ looked around and realized they were by far the oldest ones in the bar. They were definitely the misfits on Montford. The Montford Misfits.
That night, the four friends agreed it was the perfect name, and they were excited to get started!
But as the story goes, the initial excitement fizzled out, the days turned into years, and nothing ever came of the business.
But Brian and ÅJ weren’t quite ready to let the dream die. Still hoping to make something of the Montford Misfits, the pair bought the website domain. That alone made them feel pretty cool!
Their initial intention was still to launch a shop featuring those sarcastic t-shirts. But Brian started to make some waves with his painting skills.
Unknowingly making a pivotal business move in the right direction, the Montford Misfits website was born featuring kid’s rooms and playrooms. That’s right! You could hire ÅJ and Brian, the masterminds behind the 3D Craft Beer Maps, to customize your kid’s space. They called it, “Custom Kids.”
But it wasn’t long before the business evolved into what it is today. You already know the story of how the 3D Craft Beer Maps came to be. And they’ve still managed to stay true to their t-shirt roots with their beer based state apparel.
Shortly after the business shifted gears, ÅJ and Brian joined forces with their friend Tommy. He came in, helped them establish the LLC, and managed the business end of things as they got started. And the rest, as they say, is history!
So, cheers to summer nights, good friends, and being the misfits!
]]>That’s right, every craft beer map in our inventory starts with an artfully crafted hand painted original. If you’re curious how the maps came to be in the first place, you’ll want to click here. For today, we have a little insight for you into how each map is created from start to finish.
After Brian created the original USA map, he got a similar request from a bar in his New York hometown of Hornell, while he was there for his daughter’s baptism. But this time, they wanted a New York state wall mural featuring its local breweries.
Brian knew that a wall mural would be tough. He wasn’t a New York state resident any longer, and he was hardly ever in town. ÅJ, Brian’s buddy (and Sadie’s Godfather), was also in town for the baptism, and he happened to be at the bar with Brian at the time. While Brian discussed the possibility of painting the mural on a piece of plywood and mailing it to the bar, ÅJ said out of no where:
Completely shocked, Brian knew it was an idea worth trying. And sure enough, ÅJ cut out the first original state for Brian to paint, and they were able to ship the map to New York when it was finished to hang in the bar.
Now, with the introduction of an individual state, Brian knew they was on to something pretty cool. Naturally, North Carolina was up next.
What might come as the biggest surprise, planning each individual map is pretty time consuming. Once our artist, Brian Egger, decides which state is up next, he starts his research.
Every state has their own unique breweries. And some are more popular than others, so simply compiling a list of existing breweries isn’t good enough. Brian takes popularity and reviews into account when deciding if a brewery is going to make the cut.
Once he has his list of breweries, he sources each logo.
Ah, now it’s time for some fun. Brian drafts a true-to-scale mockup of the state map in Photoshop. He carefully layers each brewery’s logo in, adjusting as he goes. Not every brewery can land in its exact geographical location, but he does try to take it into account when he’s creating the layout.
The thing is, at the end of the day, our craft beer maps are a piece of art. So Brian keeps that at the forefront of his mind as he’s piecing everything together. It’s important to space out certain colors and images to make sure everything looks as good as possible!
Once the mockup is complete, it’s time for ÅJ to make the cut. ÅJ Selapack hand cuts and bevels each original map out of wood with a compact hand router. Just think about that for a second. That’s a whole lot of detail to get right. ÅJ might actually be a rock star!
Montford Misfits has an awesome studio next to Bulldog Beer and Wine in Southend. And in the back left corner, you’ll find a huge easel set up with an enormous state cut out secured to it. Right now, it’s Florida. It’s during this process that Brian has to pay special attention to the dimensions in his photoshop mockup.
He sketches the mockup onto the state and gets to painting. The painting process can take months.
Once the original painting is complete, Brian takes pictures, paying close attention to angles. He imports the images into Photoshop and carefully pieces them together. From there, the images get sent off to the printer.
The printing company then prints the maps on to birch wood, aluminum, and foam board. Once they’re printed, they cut them into shape. The maps then arrive back in our studio packaged and ready to go!
The printer also supplies us with prints to sell as well. But keep in mind, Brian hand signs a limited number of these and once they’re gone, they’re gone. We don’t restock unless there’s a change to the original painting, or we create a new map for the state altogether.
Pretty cool, huh? There’s a lot that goes into that interesting conversation piece hanging on your wall, and now you can tell your friends about it!
Want one for yourself? Browse our craft beer map selection here.
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Because Brian Egger seems like your average dude when you first meet him. He’s a nice guy who shares his piercing blue eyes with his three year old daughter. In his spare time, you can find him on the slopes catching some air with his buddies. And until recently, he was a Special Education teacher.
So how does a guy go from teaching Special Education to selling hand painted 3D craft beer maps?
Well, that’s kind of a funny story.
The former teacher actually has his BA in Art. But that wasn’t his original plan. In fact, he intended to graduate with a degree in graphic design; but as the story goes, a dollar short and a minute too late, those cards just didn’t add up in the end. So while he’ll admit he wasn’t all that great at art in the beginning, he did enjoy it, so he decided to stick with it.
Fueled only by his passion, he got increasingly better throughout his collegiate career. So good, in fact, that he was offered his own studio space his second semester Senior year. The thing is, though, the school he attended? They didn’t traditionally offer studio space to BA students if that tells you anything.
The ten years he taught before going full time with Montford Misfits were strung together one spontaneous decision after another. He taught Art his first year out of school. But from there he went from Tampa then to Massachusetts before finally landing here in Charlotte. He did it all from substitute teaching to leading an occupational course study program. He fully intended to continue with his career in education. He was so sure, in fact, that he only just recently graduated with his Master’s degree in Special Education.
But that’s when things got really interesting.
Through different connections, bar owners started to reach out to Brian to commission him for various wall murals. It all started with a Delirium Tremens logo mural at the World of Beer in Southend Charlotte. From there, word of his talent traveled. And soon, the project that changed it all for him fell at his feet.
The owner of Duckworth’s requested a USA map displaying different craft beer breweries. Brian gave it some thought, then he artfully put together a mockup of what he envisioned in photoshop. When he presented his idea (the USA map as you all know and love it today), Rob Duckworth said well, not what I was thinking, but okay. Let’s do it.
So, it was time to get painting.
The project took Brian a year. And once it was completed, Rob Duckworth loved it so much he wanted another for his Uptown location. At a loss, Brian knew he didn’t have another year to commit to the project. So he got to brainstorming. He thought maybe if he took pictures of it, he could figure out a way to replicate it.
Well, one night at Bulldog Beer & Wine in Dilworth, he happened to sit at the bar next to a guy named Jerry. And Jerry just so happened to be an account manager for a printing company.
From there, everything just sort of serendipitously fell into place. Working together, Brian and Jerry were able to bring a replica of the USA map to life. And it wasn’t before long that something Brian did for fun turned into a successful business venture. With his buddy A.J. hand cutting out each original state and the financial backing of Tommy, Brian continues to expand the range one hand painted state at at time.
Come back next week to learn all about the fascinating process of creating each map!
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