Bourgeois is the Lewiston, Maine acoustic maker whose USA flagship is joined by a Touchstone line built at Eastman’s China workshop, through a 2019 partnership.

Bourgeois opens this second stringed-instrument round — the second-line round — as its keystone: the Lewiston, Maine acoustic maker whose flagship is built in the United States, and whose more affordable line is built overseas through a partnership, said plainly. Bourgeois makes the instrument at the bench, and its answer to a round about the second line is the honest split — a Maine-built flagship and a Touchstone series voiced in Maine but assembled in China. A brand, split.

Its identity is the Maine flagship with a China second line. The USA flagship, the overseas Touchstone tier and the Eastman partnership are the story here. A brand, split. The Maine flagship with a China second line.

(Honest notes, so the partnership stays a partnership, and the tiers stay clear. Bourgeois makes acoustic guitars as its heroes — its OM and Slope-D shapes, and its Aged Tone and Vintage USA series — and we report its performance language as the brand’s own marketing. It was founded in 1993 by Dana Bourgeois, in Lewiston, Maine. On who owns it, a theme of this round, a careful line: in 2019 it entered a partnership and investment with Eastman, in which Dana Bourgeois retained an ownership interest and was chief executive; a single 2025 report describes a new chief executive with Dana moving to design, which we note lightly. Crucially, this is a partnership, not an acquisition, so we never write that Eastman acquired Bourgeois. On where it is made, the star theme of this round, the flagship is built in Lewiston, Maine, while the lower-priced Touchstone series has its tops voiced in Maine and its body and neck built at Eastman’s workshop in China — the round’s clearest domestic-plus-overseas split. Its designs are IP we describe but do not reproduce; there is no official brand hex; these tones are an unofficial interpretation.)

Bourgeois lives in an aged caramel. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Bourgeois’ identity is split, Maine-built and partnered — an aged caramel, an ink, a pale spruce, a deep walnut, and a paper. The palette leans aged caramel and pale spruce: an aged-tone register that nods to a Maine flat-top rather than a loud logo colour. It signals a voiced-top maker. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these values are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party colours.

The lesson is an aged caramel signals a split, Maine-built identity. Bourgeois’ world is a voiced acoustic top. For designers, it is a reminder that an aged caramel and a soft pale spruce can carry an instrument brand — the tone of the aged top. Because these tones can fail as small text, keep type dark and let the colour live in the accents, palette and band. The takeaways: build the flagship in Maine; call the Touchstone tier overseas; keep it a partnership, not an acquisition; and treat any single hex as unofficial.

The register is a voiced-top serif — voiced, editorial, Maine.

Bourgeois’ identity carries a voiced, editorial, Maine spirit — a bench maker, not a graphics label. A voiced-top serif captures the mood: refined, warm and confident, the register of a hand-voiced top. Set in an aged-caramel palette, the voiced-top serif feels voiced and Maine — exactly the personality Bourgeois carries. It is a voiced object rather than a logo, mirroring soundboard grain. (Bourgeois’ real guitars are things we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not ours to use.) Because it is not ours to use, the honest description is “a voiced-top-serif maker,” shown here in a stand-in. The type behaves like the brand: voiced, editorial and Maine.

Bourgeois stands for the Maine flagship with a China second line.

Bourgeois opens the second-line round as its keystone. An aged-caramel palette, a voiced-top serif and a 1993 founding make one thing — the Maine flagship with a China second line — the whole identity: split, Maine-built and partnered. The USA flagship is the pitch, and the overseas Touchstone tier is the honest split. The point is a domestic flagship and an overseas second line, named plainly, opening a round about the second line.

Put to work, the identity is the split told straight, tiers and all — with the flagship kept in Maine and the partnership kept a partnership. A maker in this spirit would build the flagship in Maine, call the Touchstone tier overseas, and keep it a partnership, not an acquisition. A reader in this spirit would keep the facts right: Bourgeois makes acoustic guitars as its heroes — OM and Slope-D shapes, Aged Tone and Vintage USA series; it was founded in 1993 by Dana Bourgeois in Lewiston, Maine; in 2019 it entered a partnership and investment with Eastman, Dana retaining an ownership interest and serving as chief executive, with a 2025 report of a new chief executive noted lightly — and this is a partnership, never an acquisition; and the flagship is built in Maine while the Touchstone series is voiced in Maine and assembled at Eastman’s China workshop. Bourgeois anchors the round’s second-line spine, and cross-links to Eastman from the previous round. The honest editorial moves are to date it to 1993, to credit Dana Bourgeois, to name the split tiers, to keep the Eastman tie a partnership, and to reproduce no shapes.

For designers and brand-builders, Bourgeois opens the second line: name the overseas tier — and keep a partnership a partnership. The lessons: let a domestic flagship and an honest overseas tier carry a brand; name where each tier is built; never upgrade a partnership into an acquisition in the copy; note a leadership report lightly when single-sourced; and never reproduce an instrument. It is also a reminder to stay precise: Bourgeois is the Lewiston, Maine acoustic maker whose USA flagship is joined by a Touchstone line built at Eastman’s China workshop, through a 2019 partnership — with the palette here an unofficial interpretation. Read that way, Bourgeois is less a guitar than a split: Maine-built, partnered, honestly-tiered. The lesson for a brand is that a domestic flagship and a named overseas tier reinforce each other, and keeping the partnership honest keeps the story earned. Bourgeois made the-Maine-flagship-with-a-China-second-line the identity — proof that an honest split can open a round, its keystone.

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