“Do you know what a flat white is? Of course I do.. it’s like a latte but stronger and with less milk.” Partly thanks to a certain fast food chain and their TV advertising, the elitist barriers to coffee are slowly breaking down and the general public are breathing a sign of relief. Consumers are demanding artisanal coffee and it’s now more accessible than ever.
The passion in the coffee industry for constant innovation and discovery for new brewing techniques is staggering. The art of brewing and blending is similar to that of the mixologist or the master blender. I love a coffee myself and was delighted when Brixton based coffee experts Volcano approached us to work with them.
As a truly artisanal, craft, small batch roaster (all the buzz words in there), they roast and pack everything by hand, they support sustainable, fair trade farming and have a great story to tell.
Working with a principle theme from the founders we created a packaging portfolio of different blends and formats which reflected the authentic, premium and modern feeling of the business. Bucking the niche trends of the craft coffee movement, the packaging needed to feel relevant to a wide and varied audience. Appealing to both the Baristas who use the coffee in London’s finest hipster cafes, through to the consumer shopping in the deli or supermarket.
A clean and consistent design system was developed utilising a repeat pattern which allows the packs to create a shelf block effect when displayed. Bold colour was used to differentiate blends set against a backdrop of a rich black, along with the refreshing use of brights’ in the retail range, the result is a distinctive and considered portfolio.
Volcano also needed a new e-commerce website that would inspire coffee aficionados and put the company’s ethos, people and products centre stage. We took the visual cues from the packaging to ensure the look and feel carried across the online shopping experience. The result is a site that pushes a theme with customised layouts and a serrated border motif, giving the site a highly-bespoke design while retaining all the ecommerce power of the platform. The site allows customers to subscribe and pay monthly and includes an integrated subscription checkout that uses existing Shopify product pages, checkout flow and order backend.
It was fantastic to see the packaging launch at the London Coffee Festival, a celebration of the capitals artisan coffee scene, held at the Truman Brewery.