Whole Bean

Branding Style Kit for a Coffee Shop

The Clients : Whole Bean Coffee Shop Owners

A group of friends that love to travel and share their love for gourmet, organic fair trade, artisan coffee and delicious clean food.

From their travels and favorite foods, Whole Bean Coffee Shop was created.

Embracing ethical sustainable sourcing and production, wherever they open their locations, they pride themselves on serve all and to offer delicious options such as gluten free, vegan, keto and more.

The Brief

Services Provided: Brand Strategy, Visual Identity System, Messaging Framework, Style Guide Development, and Digital Launch Strategy.

The Challenge: Upon opening a new location, the owners of Whole Bean sought to expand the brand’s visual language without sacrificing its core values of a heritage inclusivity with a modern twist, yet accommodating the new location needs.

The Concept: Global Heritage meets Modern Inclusivity for a new location and its needs

The Goal: To create a cohesive branding style kit and a high-converting landing page to support the grand opening and future rebrand expansion.

Role: Lead Brand Designer (Sole Contributor).

Tools: Adobe Illustrator and Adobe XD.

Project Date: Original project December 2020

Case Study Date : January 2026

Strategy & Creative Direction

Strategy

Brand Strategy: the brand has very clear values and just needing to expand to its new location and to the new demographic

My strategy was rooted in the concept of "The Timeless Sanctuary."

What makes a coffee brand iconic, the sense of "solid" tradition, the kind of authentic feel you encounter in the classic cafes of Europe or Latin America and the US. I aimed to capture that global, generational soul and infuse it with the client’s modern, inclusive values.

Strategic Insight: Inclusive Messaging, the visual system was designed to explicitly highlight the brand’s commitment to the brand's established "Old World" roots and its cosmopolitan demographic values and organic fair-trade coffee and dietary-friendly options like gluten-free, vegan, and keto adding the new location vibe.

Atmospheric Branding: By analyzing the physical location, I integrated textures like chalkboard and dark wood to evoke a sense of warmth and artisan craftsmanship.

Visual Persona: The final identity is defined by five key pillars: Cosmopolitan, Modern, Elegant, Welcoming, and Friendly.

Final Brand Identity & Implementation: The classic timeless that you can fine globally that stands out and you know is coffee, with modern tones that embrace the inclusivity and their unique values for clean gourmet delicious food, organic identity designed to scale across physical retail and digital touch points.

Design Decisions:

Mission Statement

Delivering a mission statement where introduces them and their service to the community they are opening the doors to.

Color Palette

Color Palette: A sophisticated scheme of Charcoal (#484848), Artisan Beige (#928262), and Neutral Gray (#ebe8e3) was developed to reflect the organic quality of the beans and the ethical values of the brand.

Typography: A Balance of Heritage and Modernity

The typographic system for Whole Bean was developed to create a distinct visual hierarchy that mirrors the brand's "Old World" soul and "Cosmopolitan" origins and values.

Typography

- Primary Brand Font (Blenny): I selected this bold, high-character stencil font to represent the "Solid Heritage" of the brand. Its heavy weights and unique curves give the logo a grounded, generational feel that is instantly recognizable.

- Secondary/Body Font (Rufina Stencil): To provide a "Cosmopolitan" contrast, I paired the main mark with the elegant and refined Rufina Stencil. This choice ensures that longer blocks of text remain legible while maintaining the brand's sophisticated and "Elegant" persona.

- Scalability: The typescale was rigorously tested to ensure accessibility across all touchpoints, from large-scale titles to fine-print navigation menus, web use and product placements.

The custom iconography set uses clean, minimalist lines to guide the customer through the digital experience and reflecting the brand's 'Modern' and 'Friendly' pillars

Logo

Logo Variations & Brand Standards

To ensure the Whole Bean identity remains consistent across a diverse range of physical and digital applications, I developed a comprehensive set of usage standards.

The Primary Mark: The core logo—a stylized coffee bean within a geometric hexagon—serves as the primary seal of quality. The coffee branches for the organic, fresh wholesomeness fair trade values of the brand.

- The Chalkboard Application: A key "Logo Do" is the application of the white variation against a chalkboard texture. This specific rule reinforces the "Artisan" and "Authentic" atmosphere of the physical shop.

- Usage Constraints: To preserve brand integrity, I established "Logo Don’ts" that prohibit the use of unauthorized colors or textures, ensuring the brand remains "Simple" and "Premium" at all times.

Iconography

I used digital illustration line art from their images to keep the authentic uniqueness and organic feel of the brand.

I used Adobe Illustrator.

The final result

Branding Style Guide

The Whole Bean Branding Style Kit is a comprehensive identity system that honors a Cosmopolitan heritage while embracing a Modern, inclusive future. By blending high-character typography with organic textures, I created a brand that feels like a global tradition—a solid, timeless sanctuary that is as welcoming to new demographics as it is to its original roots."

Outcome: Cohesive way to express visually and consistently, designing for their new location demographic and expressing this exciting new chapter for the brand.

Now they have new brand and guidelines for their new location and relaunch as well for their new products and social media present and future use.

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