Work outward from the bag
Keep what the packaging already earned, then build the system it implied: a mark that holds at 16px, a secondary wordmark for wide spaces, and a palette where roast level does the colour coding.
CONCEPT STUDY · 03
Sabine & Cypress Coffee
COFFEE ROASTER · EAST END, HOUSTON
A concept study. Sabine & Cypress Coffee is an invented Houston business, used to show how the work runs end to end — not a client engagement.
BRAND IDENTITY SYSTEMSTOREFRONTWHOLESALE PATH
A roaster whose bag design carried the whole brand, on a site that sent cafés and walk-ins to the same page.
The problem
The packaging was doing all the work and nothing else was helping it. Four problems:
- 01The identity existed only on the bag — the site, the menu board and the invoices each looked like a different company.
- 02One page served two audiences: a wholesale buyer comparing suppliers, and a neighbour deciding where to get coffee.
- 03The mark was drawn for a 12oz bag and turned to mud at 16px in a browser tab.
- 04Product photography was shot in four different lights across two years, so the range never looked like a range.
The approach
Split the audience
A retail path that answers 'what should I buy' and a wholesale path that answers 'can you supply me', each with its own first screen and its own next step.
A storefront the owner can restock
Products, roast dates and availability edited without a developer, because coffee changes weekly and websites should not need a ticket.
One photographic standard
A single light setup, one background, one crop, applied across the whole range so the line photographs as a line.
Make the physical and the digital agree
The same type and the same colours on the menu board, the bag and the site.
What it produces
Described in what changes, not in invented statistics. Performance numbers belong to real named projects — when a client shares theirs, they will appear here with their permission.
One mark, every size
It works on a 12oz bag and in a browser tab without a redraw.
Two audiences, two paths
Wholesale enquiries and retail orders stop competing for the same page.
The range looks like a range
One light, one crop, one background across every product.
The owner keeps it current
Roast dates and availability change without a phone call.
More studies
CONCEPT STUDY · 01
Marlow & Sons Cabinetry
A cabinet shop whose website opened with its own history and hid the quote button three clicks deep.
READ THE STUDYCONCEPT STUDY · 02Hale & Verde Architects
A twelve-person studio whose best work lived in a 40MB PDF and whose website led with an About page.
READ THE STUDYSTART THE SAME WAY
Every project starts with the audit
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