The Brief
The Coffee Guild is a trendy coffee spot for freelancers to work or play. A place with a chill vibe and relaxed atmosphere for people to come and stay. They source only the best single origin coffee, and offer excellent cold brews.
They have invested in a larger than usual space for a coffee shop and hoped to bring more younger working/freelancing folks that are wanting to spend longer periods there for meals and coffee and meetings. They need a logo that is both professional and easy to adapt to products, and hope to also place this logo on all of their in-house coffee mugs, so it really has to be memorable.
Discovery
Coffee is a big part of my morning routine. I love how it smells, how it feels, and most importantly, how delicious good quality coffee tastes. The smell of freshly brewed coffee immediately transports me to my childhood and being woken up by the aroma of Folger's.
"The Best Part of Wakin' Up Is Folgers in Your Cup®".
Mmm. Good branding. So good.
After familiarizing myself with the brief, I began to gather images that reminded me of these experiences of coffee. I thought about the smell of coffee, the feeling of the coffee beans in my hand, how dark it looked and how rich it smelled. I wanted to capture that feeling, that idea and bring it to life with words and images.
In addition, I collected different styles and shapes of guild symbols. In this experience, it is invaluable to take into consideration that this is a new company that has not established brand recognition yet. My goal was to create something that was not too abstract, simple, and something that they could carry with them for a few years.
Design
One of The Coffee Guild’s competitors' brand colors are green and black, and they did not want to have similar colors. The obvious choice is shades of brown to represent coffee and espresso and these things. Although it was a seemingly easy choice, I was drawn to use brown; but I also wanted to add something else, a "pop" of color, like a shade of blue. However, after receiving feedback from multiple sources, I decided to go with a caramel brown and a chocolate brown.
However, after receiving feedback from multiple sources, I decided to go with a caramel brown and a chocolate brown. I think this lends itself to a new company who does not want to adventure too far from coffee associations until they've established themselves as a trusted coffee spot and earned the loyalty of their consumers.
While deciding between multiple ideas, I eventually settled on creating a combination mark that included the staples of the company and the industry they're in.
For the primary mark, I formed the encapsulating ring of the emblem with the company name and placed the initials and established date in the center. To anchor the logo, I created three icons to represent typical and quintessential pieces: an espresso cup, a coffee bean, and a coffee mug. These are the staples that the consumer is interacting with, and it keeps the icon simple, memorable and easy to understand.
For the secondary mark, I decided to create a simple stacked wordmark that can be used with or without the additions of the icons and establishment date. I wanted to offer more flexibility for different applications such as social media profile pictures and various forms of merchandise.
This was a personal project.
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