Rate of Rise Coffee Roasters
Brand identity and packaging
Client Type
Private
Project Duties
Creative Director:
Brand Identity
Brand Strategy
Illustration
Packaging Design
Rate of Rise began with a mission to combine the owner’s two passions in life, coffee and nature. Inextricably linked, Jim wanted his perspective on nature to inform his approach to coffee, aiming to create a truly sustainable business model. This includes supporting biodiversity charities with direct donations from sales, but also carefully considering every step of the product’s journey. This ethos perfectly loops back to his ambition for the coffee itself; being enjoyed in the very nature that provides it.
This honourable mission informed the brand messaging, visual identity and packaging design from the very start, and writing a brand mission statement to capture this sentiment was the first step in building a brand that people, both outdoorsy types and those whose adventures only stretch to the coffee shop, could understand, believe and get behind.
At the heart of the brand is an illustrative style that brings together the legacy logo (the rising sun and mountain motif above the new logotype - a requirement of the brief), a new logotype and the ‘nature’ elements Jim loves so much. An illustrated hand, fondly named Hans, was one of the first things I drew in early concepting and Jim loved it immediately. It adds a human touch, sets up the proposition of drinking coffee out in nature and allows people to put themselves in that scene.
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The logo typeface is a customised version of the highlight font, Stymie Condensed, designed by Morris Fuller Benton and published by Linotype. This typeface brings tall, bold letter forms with a constant stroke to match the keyline illustrations. The serifs add authority and a Trading Post feel that prevents the brand from feeling too modern.
To create a distinctive version for the logotype, corners were rounded to varying degrees to create a softer but fuller letterform. A slowly rising ‘OF’ was used to break up the two words and balance the condensed letters with some space.
The typography set was completed with a head and body font that again complemented the line work in the illustrations with a constant stroke width. This font, Filson Pro by Olivier Gourvat from Mostardesign, is soft and welcoming with its curved letter forms and brings a quirky personality with its distinctive terminals on the K, Q and R.
A colour palette based on sunset, sunrise and landscape colours was developed for the core brand with an extended palette giving each coffee roast its own identity. To further this, plant illustrations are tailored for each roast, whilst 'Hans' is re-coloured to match.
A suite of social media background assets meant all bases were covered for Instagram posts and stories, and I created a short brand book encompassing brand mission, archetypes, messaging, and the visual toolkit.
A little extra…
Some intermediate concepts, just because I still love them; No legacy logo, an earlier more-stylised Hans and more abstract illustrations with vibrant colour use. In the end, the more masculine, less dainty tea-cup-esque version of Hans (with the subtle thumbs up) would win out, alongside the movement to less colour variation, a lower-carbon-footprint paper bag and stamping of the main logotype directly onto the bag to add a handmade touch to the overall presentation.