Identity systems built for recall

Roast Lab had built a loyal following around one small counter, but the founders knew the brand as it existed, a hand-lettered chalkboard sign and word of mouth, would not survive the jump to packaged bags sitting next to a dozen competitors on a grocery shelf. They needed an identity that still felt like the same coffee people already trusted, just legible at a distance and consistent across a hundred bags at a time.

We began with an audit of what customers already associated with the counter: a specific shade of deep brown, the roughness of the chalkboard type, and a habit of naming blends after Kathmandu neighborhoods. Those associations were the brand equity worth protecting, so the new identity kept the brown and the neighborhood-naming convention rather than replacing them with something generic and safe.

Around that core, we built the parts that had never existed: a proper wordmark that held up at business-card size and on a two-inch bag label alike, a secondary type system for ingredient lists and roast notes, and a color-coded system so a customer could tell a light roast from a dark one from three feet away without reading a word.

Packaging came last and mattered most, since it was the one touchpoint that would now reach people who had never visited the counter. We designed a bag system with a consistent front-of-pack hierarchy, name, roast level, tasting notes, so a new customer standing in a grocery aisle could make a confident choice in seconds, the same way a regular could order confidently at the counter.

The guideline we handed over documents every rule, spacing, color values, approved photography style, so Roast Lab's print vendor and its social media team use the same brand whether they are printing five hundred bags or posting a single Instagram story. What started as a chalkboard sign is now a system built to hold up on a shelf next to anyone.