Still buzzing from World coffee day?! Here at DesignCrowd, we believe celebrating a beverage that keeps millions of people (including us) fully functioning every day is truly a worthy cause.
There is much to love about this miracle elixir, not least its invaluable contribution to design. Not only has it kept many-a-designer sane during long creative projects, it's also helped inspire some pretty awesome work.
There are a few common themes designers like to play with when creating a logo for a coffee brand, which can be a blessing and a curse – aligning yourself with industry trends is a great idea when done right, but can make your design seem boring and unoriginal if not.
Here's a list of five common logo types for coffee, and how to implement them perfectly.
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The Steaming Cup
It's pretty obvious how this logo trope developed – what's not to love about a hot, steaming cup o' joe? Unfortunately, it's now been done so much you'll be hard pressed to make it original and unique to a particular brand.
We love designer radleon's logo for Espressivo because they managed just that – incorporating an inviting mug of happiness into a design which perfectly reflects the company's tagline.
A famous coffee brand which likes to use the steaming cup is Nescafé. While the cup is not part of its logo per se, the vast majority of Nescafé packaging includes a mug or seductive curl of steam on the front.
SEE MORE: Cup Logo Designs (on BrandCrowd)
The Coffee Bean
The coffee bean is another popular image for coffee brands. Like the mug, keeping this design fresh and unique is really important to keep it from being too generic.
We love this design for Rabbit Nest Coffee for two reasons: firstly, it is beautifully crafted with an original take on the coffee bean. Secondly, it showcases the design in a mock-up version of where it might be used one day.
As clients often have trouble picturing exactly what the finished product might look like, creating a mock-up can be an effective way to show the full potential of a design.
German coffee giant Tchibo uses a stylized coffee bean both as the "o" in its brand name, and with a seductive swirl of steam for its stand-alone logo.
SEE MORE: Coffee Bean Logo Designs (on BrandCrowd)
The Cultural Heritage Logo
Many coffee makers like to reference their product's origin or history, choosing culturally specific designs based on their location or company heritage.
There are two things to really remember when designing a culturally specific logo: firstly, make sure you research your target culture very carefully, particularly if it is not your own heritage. Skipping this step risks creating a design that can be inaccurate or drawing on offensive stereotypes.
Secondly, do not forget about the execution of the design in favor of the cultural reference – you still want something eye-catching and well-executed. This design for Rwandan company Three African Sisters is not only culturally on point, it's also stunningly executed with well-chosen color and forms.
The multi-national coffee chain Juan Valdez Café chooses to reflect its Colombian heritage in its logo design.
The Round Seal
The round seal is immensely popular for many coffee brands, not least international juggernaut Starbucks. It's an appropriate shape for many reasons – it's similar to the shape of both a coffee bean and a cup, and the circle traditionally stands for comfort, unity and wholesomeness.
Getting a circle logo right is very much about good layout and appropriate font choices as well as remembering to keep it unique in some way so it doesn't drown in a sea of other generic circles.
DQ designs achieves this through a popping orange color, as well as a subtle nod to the company name Rockaway Roasters, and location ("hipster surfing beach community"), in the tiny surfer riding a coffee wave spilling out of the cup.
SEE MORE: Circle Logo Designs (on BrandCrowd)
Lettermark or Wordmark Logos
There's much to love about a simple, all-type logo. For one, it's very versatile and can be easily mixed and matched with any number of design elements for packaging, signage, t-shirts and more. It's also usually very clear and can be recognised from far away or on tiny device screens.
Craftworks Coffee is a great example of those benefits, with a clear sans-serif font for its name and a letter-based flat logo. Simple, but effective.
The Italian coffee retailer Lavazza knows a thing or two about a great type-based logo, which is just as well, as their logo perfectly moulds itself to their wide range of offerings from coffee beans and flavoured cappuccino, to espresso machines and service products like individual sugar satchels, branded mugs and pre-packaged cookies for professional café operations.
BONUS: Letter C Logo Maker
Want More?
Creating unique logo designs can be a challenge. Take a look at these round-ups for inspiration:
Wine logos - 5 famous wine logos and labels
35 Famous Circle Logos
Negative space logos - 16 example negative space logo designs
Written by Jane Murray on Thursday, October 1, 2015
Jane Murray is a freelance copywriter based in Sydney. Apart from writing up a storm for the DesignCrowd blog on anything from logo design to Michael Jackson's shoes, she enjoys reading literary science fiction and hanging out with most animals except wasps. Get in touch via LinkedIn.
