Coffee Hackers

logo & branding, packaging, interior design, web

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CLIENT:
Coffee Hackers, Coffee Roasting Lab & Store
(Barcelona, Spain)

OUR TASKS:
· Logo Design
· Product Packaging
· Product Catalogue
· Menu, Stationary & Flyers
· Interior Design and Concepts for the Store
· Webdesign (Programming via the client)

www.thecoffeehackers.com

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Carlos Valderrama has been a long-standing client of mine in the field of Cybersecurity. However I now learned that his other much older passion from his colombian heritage is coffee! He now had the idea to apply his analytical mind to the meticulous methodology of the roasting process and open a coffee shop called COFFEE HACKERS in Gracia, Barcelona.

However, by dissecting and “hacking” each roasting step, he wanted to develop novel techniques and innovations. The aim was a “laboratory” in the middle of the city, roasting in situ and offering tasting sessions, not just a “cosy place to chat over a coffee”. As I was creating all the branding and web, I offered to help with the interior design of the lab too.

// Logo & Branding

Since this coffee house is more of an inner-city lab where you can watch the coffee roasting process gets dissected and “hacked”, we quickly discarded a typical “warm & cosy” or “traditional” coffee branding.

My initial idea was clean and “scientific-like”, but, coming from the world of programmers, hackers and imagination fueled by coffee, Carlos wanted to highlight the “hacker spirit” of the project. So we settled on a more underground and urban direction.

I decided on the stencil idea for the logo, allowing us to reproduce the branding manually; stamps for the packaging and menus… you could even cocoa-dust the logo as a pattern onto your coffee foam itself!

1. cut-out business cards that can be used as a stencil or to dust the logo onto the coffee cup itself // 2. to create ecological & economical packaging, we stamped the logo onto craft paper and added all the rest of the info with brightly-coloured info cards for each coffee variety // 3. the coffee menu can be printed in-house by the client // 3. the final coffee shop and lab interior design, inspired by our interior design mood-boards and layout suggestions.

// The Brand Catalogue

One of the collateral material we created is the brand catalogue to be taken to restaurants that might want to offer a unique coffee or even a taste specifially blended for their restaurant.

// Website & Online Shop

The web is as much brand presentation as it is online shop for its product. So I tried to take it away visually from the standard shop language. Programming was developed by the clients own programmer Jean Romero.

Web design by Sandra Weese
Programming via the clients programmer Jean Romero

// Interior Design Shop

This was the first time I have been able to incorporate my visual branding into the interior design of a shop and it was great fun! I wanted to reflect the “no bullshit” approach of the product also in the interior design. 100% real, natural & honest materials, no tiles that look like cement, no wallpaper that look like bricks, etc. So real cement floor, real wood & leather etc plus a ton of greenery that leans on the idea of “biophilia”.

Initially we talked about simply providing some “Moodboards” for the space but by the end I had contributed layout ideas, electrical plans and shopping-lists of specific products like lighting or tiles. The most impactful element I suggested is the huge, recycled shipping container door that Carlos tracked down and had craned into the space.