SURELY DIRTY
Building A Ready-To-Drink Brand From A Single Idea
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Founder Sierra Harris came to Digital Silk with an idea rather than a business: bring the Dirty Shirley, one of the most talked-about cocktails of the last few years, to market in a ready-to-drink can.
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We evaluated the category, identified the opening, and built the brand from nothing — brand strategy, logo, brand book and website — landing on a visual world that pairs 1950s pin-up nostalgia with a Gen Z aesthetic.
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Surely Dirty launched with a complete identity and a site built to sell it: a trademarked wordmark, an ownable cherry-red world, and product messaging built around real vodka, zero sugar and 90 calories a can.
The Challenge
Surely Dirty didn’t come to us with a website problem. They came with an idea and nothing else.
A Brand That Didn’t Exist Yet
Founder Sierra Harris had identified the opportunity — the Dirty Shirley had become one of the most ordered cocktails in the US, but nobody had put it in a can. What existed was the insight. There was no name in market, no identity, no packaging direction and no website.
A Category Where Shelf Presence Is The Whole Game
Ready-to-drink is one of the most crowded shelves in beverage. A canned cocktail is bought in seconds, often from a fridge door surrounded by competitors, which means the identity has to do the selling before anyone tastes the product.
A Nostalgia Play That Could Easily Skew Too Young
The Shirley Temple is a drink most people first had as children. A brand leaning on that memory risks reading as childish rather than knowing — a particular problem for an alcoholic product, where the line matters commercially and legally.
Two Audiences In One Aesthetic
The brand needed to land with women who remember the original drink and with a younger cohort discovering it through social media, without splitting into two visual identities.
No Baseline To Design Against
With no existing product, no sales history and no audience, every decision had to come from category analysis and positioning rather than from performance data.
The Solution
We built the brand from the ground up, starting with where it could win rather than what it should look like.
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Market Evaluation & Opportunity Sizing
We assessed the ready-to-drink category, mapped how existing brands positioned themselves, and confirmed where an unclaimed Dirty Shirley could stand — a drink with enormous cultural recognition and no branded owner. -
A Brand Strategy Built On One Tension
We built the strategy around a single idea: the drink you grew up loving, given a grown-up twist. Nostalgia is the hook, but the brand is unmistakably adult — real vodka, “The Original Sin,” the deliberate slide from Shirley to Dirty. -
Naming & Logo
Surely Dirty turns the source drink into a name that carries the joke and the product in two words. The logo is a bold white script with a deep red shadow and a small heart accent, trademark included — built to hold at can size and at thumbnail size. -
A Visual World: Pin-Up Nostalgia, Gen Z Energy
We combined the confidence of 1950s pin-up illustration with a contemporary palette and finish — cherry red, polka dots, sparkle stars, bubble animations and retro-styled lifestyle photography. Familiar enough to trigger the memory, current enough to belong in a Gen Z feed. -
A Brand Book For Consistency Across Can, Shelf And Screen
We documented the identity so it holds everywhere the product appears: logo usage, palette, typography, iconography and imagery direction, giving a new brand the consistency an established one takes for granted. -
A Website Built To Sell The Can
We designed and built the site around product truth and conversion: an animated hero, a four-icon proof set — 0g sugar, real vodka, bold cherry flavor, no artificial colors — a serving-facts panel, the founder’s story, and a route to buy alongside a community sign-up that builds an owned audience from day one.
The Results
Surely Dirty went to market with a complete brand behind it:
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A Full Brand Systembuilt from nothing — strategy, name, trademarked logo, palette, typography and brand book
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One Ownable Aestheticpairing 1950s pin-up nostalgia with Gen Z energy, distinct on a shelf of lookalike RTD cans
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4 Product Proof Pointsreal vodka, 0g sugar, bold cherry flavor and no artificial colors, at 90 calories a can
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A Site Built To Convertproduct storytelling, serving facts, a direct route to buy and a community list capturing demand from launch
Our Custom Web Design Portfolio
1,000+ Completed Projects
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