Anyone who’s seen Terry Crews’ impressive artwork in the past (including the Ad Age cover he designed in 2017) won’t be surprised to hear he’s created some box imagery for Liquid Death’s Severed Lime sparkling water—featuring brand mascot Murder Man driving a gloriously mutilated vehicle made of body parts.

Crews worked on the project through his agency Super Serious. Liquid Death reached out almost a year ago, and there was immediate interest in doing something around Murder Man.

Also read: Liquid Death is giving away a fighter jet—for real, unlike Pepsi’s ill-fated ’90s contest

“Given Terry’s background in art and design, the sheer number of impressions—more than half a million cases in stores nationwide—and the audacity of the Liquid Death brand, this one was a no-brainer for us," said Matt O’Rourke, another Super Serious co-founder.

“Terry came up with the idea to design [Murder Man’s] car,” said Paul Sutton, the third Super Serious co-founder. “His initial sketches were bananas. The whole car is made of body parts—viscera, tendons, eyeballs, bone, guts. It kind of took our breath away the first time we saw it.”

Here’s the original sketch:

The agency decided to create a photorealistic version, keeping the basic details exactly the same. This is also a first for Liquid Death—the brand has never printed anything photorealistic on its cases before.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Terry Crews (@terrycrews)

The project also serves as a soft launch for Super Serious Recordings, the agency’s upcoming record label. Liquid Death approved putting the artwork on a CD jewel case (held by a cadaver’s hand) in the final imagery—with a URL and QR code driving to a teaser site. (Crews’ son Isaiah did all the music for the project video above.)

“Brand collaborations are a big part of our business model at Super Serious. We’re selective about who we work with because we have so many of our own projects going on, but we’re always on the lookout for the next Impossible or Liquid Death,” Crews told Ad Age.

“Super Serious is built around the understanding that ‘everything is entertainment,’ and I don’t think there’s a better example of that than this project. We literally turned the side of a cardboard box into entertainment. That’s us. That’s what we do.”

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• Channel 4 made a hard-hitting Paris 2024 Paralympics ad.
• 15 hidden gems among the Cannes Lions winners.
• Meet the interns who won gold in Cannes for a poop joke.
• Nick Cohen looks back at Mads Dogs & Englishmen.

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