I don’t know what they make Dieline awards out of but they have the density of a black hole and dragging them back to the studio almost gave me a hernia.
I met Dieline’s Andrew Gibbs and he’s about 19. He’s not, but he’s not much older and it’s quite amazing how he’s grown that thing from his bedroom to a fully packed proper conference.
A few people came up to me, for what I assumed were going to be congratulations, but they just said that they wanted me dead. A bit harsh, I thought, and not the way we generally deal with business competition but then designers can get a bit emotional.
I retreated into my emails to see that we just got a job in for a beer called Caesar. As Eddie Izzard pointed out, Caesar is a name usually reserved for small, yappy type dogs and coincidentally the very next mail informed me that someone has invented a beer for dogs. It’s not called Caesar, it’s called Bowser, and it has a dog on the label so that Caesar knows which beer is for him when he’s in the supermarket picking up his dog meat.
Apparently dogs love beer but no one has really addressed their specific beer needs. Until now. What specific needs do dogs have? Plenty.
Firstly, you don’t want your guide dog getting wasted but where is my guide dogs’ low alcohol beer option. Tada! I have to admit that until now I’ve never looked at any dog, guide or not, and wondered how wrecked it was but think about it. All that panting, pissing up lampposts, sniffing anything on four legs, sleeping all day. Really bad breath! All pretty much definitive signs of the classic drunk.
So now I’m looking around suspiciously at all the furry little fellas I see, and in New York there are many, but disappointingly they all seem to be pretty well behaved. Or just really good at holding their liquor. I’m far more suspicious of the owners who follow them around picking up their crap. I’d have to be hammered and you’d have to pay me a lot of beer to do that.
Anyway, if you’re the type who puts his pet down as designated driver, with Bowser the non alcoholic dog beer at least Caesar won’t end up getting a DUI.
Secondly, hops. Apparently dogs hate hops. I’m not sure how they figured out that dogs love beer but hate hops and I can only imagine the focus group but there it is.
And thirdly, it’s non carbonated. I’ve never known a dog belch but I’ve known plenty of them fart so this can only be a good thing.
All this is unusual but well reasoned new product development thinking. I’ve heard a lot worse.
Here’s where it gets a bit weird. The strangest thing about Bowser the dog beer, and it’s a pretty fundamental design flaw, is that it comes in a bottle.
Now, I’ve owned a few dogs of various mixes and I don’t recall any of them having opposable thumbs, let alone grippy little paws, so I’m a little puzzled as to how Caesar is supposed to get at his tasty beverage.
We might have packaged it in a fluffy toy. Dog tears toy to pieces and gets beer. Or a slipper. Dog chews slipper and gets beer. But a beer bottle with a screw top? No. I know a young dog can be taught new tricks but come on, this is just cruelty to animals. They’ll get frustrated, give up and revert to crunching through beer cans or ripping apart bag in box wines like they usually do when they want to get battered and before you know it they’ll be howling at the moon again.
Dogs may be able to drink beer but they can’t talk and so can’t complain. They could write in but not with a pen – no opposable thumbs – so I appeal to all dog owners to act on their behalf and email complaints to info@busydogs.com right now. Dog beer in dog friendly packaging, for the sake of little Caesar’s liver.
