We talk to the illustrators who collaborated with David Lynch on Mikkeller's Twin Peaks beer

For this year’s Festival of Disruption, a two day event curated by David Lynch, Mikkeller brewery in New York City collaborated with the director to design beer cans to honour his most renowned creation. The Twin Peaks beer was illustrated by Ben Kopp and Keith Shore with consultation from David, and based on the director’s original drawings, with three designs based on icons from the show.

First off, the beer itself had to be approved by David and his team. Once taste was decided, the design direction was set – to create something simple, with “minimal colours and imagery” explains Keith. “David’s team sent us a deck of Mikkeller labels as a starting point for mood and style, and shared drawings David made for Twin Peaks merch. It was great to see how loose and playful they were, and get a feel for a line quality he likes.”

Next, Ben and Keith developed the illustrations, given instructions for these not to be “too cartoony”. “David likes texture,” Keith continues, “and Ben had done some drippy patterns on some personal project that I loved, so we decided to go with a textured backdrop for the illustrations.”

The duo began to experiment by drawing portraits of Twin Peaks characters using a line quality similar to David’s drawings. To keep the illustrations from being too ‘cartoony’, Keith says he left the head off the characters. “We felt this also helped to create a strange tone across all three cans and solidify them as a series,” says the illustrator. These were printed with metallic foils on a matte paper stock, clear of typography to let the illustrations stand front and centre.

Each beer is named after its visual homage: there’s the Log Lady Lager, the Damn Good Coffee Stout, and the Red Room Ale, with type in a green outlined font to reference the show’s memorable title credits. After the festival launch, the beers went on sale across California.