Coffee Shop Branding

5 Pointers for Branding Your Shop and Your Products to Get Your Share of a Buzzy Industry

coffee shop stationery

The U.S. Coffee Shop Industry includes over 60K stores, with annual sales of around $38 Billion. The market is only expected to increase, because consumers’ coffee consumption is expected to increase. If you are looking to operate a successful coffee shop, you know: profitability relies on delivering high-quality products. You not only want to have the best baristas serving up the best beans, but high-quality graphics aid in the perception of a high-end product.

If you are a start-up or looking to re-brand, here are five important pointers to help guide your brand vision.

woman paying with card on eftpos at cafe

1) Define your ideal customer & talk to them.

Are they coffee snobs? They may respond to a detailed and artisanal look and feel.

Do they live in the neighborhood? They may appreciate a friendly, locals-only vibe.

Do they travel far and wide to try new brews? They may resonate with a world-oriented, country-of-origin emphasis.

2) Research your competition to stand out from the crowd

Unless you have been in business as long as Starbucks or have as many franchises as Coffee Bean, they’re not your closest competition. Which coffee shops are geographically closest? And which ones might be targeting your ideal customer? Once you have identified those shops, browse their websites and social media then consider how to differentiate yourself.

If they use bright colors and bold type, maybe you will use neutral colors and illustrations. If their social media uses photography, perhaps you could use video. If their posts have a “brash” voice, yours could have a “calm” voice, and so on.

3) Determine your brand’s personality

Once you have determined your brand’s customer and observed the competition, you need to create your brand’s identity. What makes your brand special? Who you are, how you approach your business and how you engage with your customers all make you different. Reflect on the qualities you want to bring to the market that are unique to you.

4) Create a look that will stand out

Those qualities can be communicated by the logo, fonts, colors, shapes, & photography or illustrations you use. Your brand identity is formed by these visual elements. All these elements together give your brand a unique personality. 

Fonts

Different fonts communicate different qualities. Serif fonts, like Adobe Garamond or Bodoni, are classic and portray formality, establishment, sophistication and tradition. Sans serif fonts, like Helvetica and Avant Garde, are more modern, neutral, friendly and informal. Slab serif fonts, like  Rockwell, are more loud and bold.

Color

Color is very powerful in graphic design. It can attract attention, evoke emotion and make a pleasing aesthetic. For a coffeeshop, the color brown is not going to go out of style any time soon, but using other colors for a unique look may be a smart branding decision. 


The Boy and The Bear Coffee Roastery logo

Consider The Boy & The Bear Coffee Roastery in Redondo Beach. They wanted to provide a premium, specialty coffee experience while imparting the Colombian culture that was part of their heritage. Their logo features a boy and a bear from a folkloric bedtime story, with a serif font, engraved imagery and warm copper colors and weathered woods to convey friendliness, heritage and tradition.

The Boy and The Bear Coffee Roastery building

Coffee shop stationery branding guide

5) Go the Extra Mile

Once you have a logo, there are so many opportunities to reinforce your brand. Much emphasis is naturally placed on the baristas and the beans, but often a customer is coming to you for atmosphere, which is a huge part of coffee culture. You can apply your brand to your signage, menu, business cards and coffee cups, but thinking beyond that, there are staff uniforms, shopping bags, hang tags, order pads, bean bags, wall murals, and more. All of these elements can contribute to the unique environment your coffee shop has to offer. Make sure to play up your brand personality in your space.