Double Diamond, once considered the nation's national beer, has officially relaunched after a 29-year hiatus. As Emily Gosling reported on October 28, 2025, Double Diamond was first brewed in 1876 by Samuel Alsop & Sons in Staffordshire. By 1958, it was the UK's best-selling bottled beer, and in the 1960s and 1970s, it was imprinted on the public's consciousness with TV advertising and the tagline, "A Double Diamond works wonders." Commercial production ceased in 1996.
This revival has been spearheaded by Kirkstall Brewery. It has a relatively low ABV of 3.8% and is available in packs of four 440ml cans for £5.75 at Tesco.
The new identity was created by designer and lettering artist Alec Tier, who explained his approach was to select the best elements from the past archives and reimagine them in the present tense. The team expanded to include Silas Amos for strategy illustration, Satoshi Hashimoto for character animation, and Jamie Quantrill for animation.
The visuals are focused on restraint. We've kept the palette to black, yellow, and red, with the orange created by overlapping the two. We've also stuck to a single typeface: DD Bold, a bespoke typeface created by Lewis MacDonald of Polytype in Glasgow, is used across all touchpoints. We've also retained the slanted capitalization and double-D symbol from 1960s labels. The Little Man mascot has been redrawn and animated.
This project showcases a trend in brand design, with the recycling of archive assets and the return of mascots. Simultaneously, it aligns with a shift in the premium crafts market, which is reeling from rising costs and intense competition, and a renewed emphasis on mass distribution and reasonable prices. However, positioning remains a challenge. Critics argue that the powerful visual language may be unfamiliar to older generations who remember the past, while younger generations new to the brand may lack context. Nevertheless, the choice to rebuild the brand with just one typeface, two colors, and one character is seen as a bold experiment.
