Recently, we had a great pleasure to be included in the new issue of Creativver Packen Magazine. We shared our experiences with designing coffee packaging for several new brands from all over the world. Here is the entire article for you to enjoy.
The coffee industry has rapidly grown in the past years. Many new brands and small producers are trying to find their place in the local and global markets. Like a few other products before, coffee opened the whole new world of trends, brewers, rich flavors, and packaging designs that follow. It became a fashionable thing more than ever before.
Designing a coffee packaging is always a great challenge. Creating a unique visual identity that can stand out from the competition is just one part of the puzzle. If you have a strong illustration background, it can give you wonderful potential. For the last two years, Creative Lemon design studio had an opportunity to work on many coffee brands from all over the world. Most of these brands were brand new and help them to develop from the start was a great journey. Each of them has its unique story that needs to be explored. Sometimes it is all about the origin, sometimes it is more about the cause, and in some cases, it is both. Telling that story in a visual way and introducing it to the world became our specialty.
One of the coffee brands that have an incredibly unique story is Gora coffee. It’s a Danish brand with Ethiopian origin. Grown, roasted, and packed in Ethiopia, it has a great “impact at origin”. It means that production involves the local population (about 15 million people in Ethiopia depends on the coffee industry). Also, this coffee has a very unique flavor. The Arabica plants are sustainably grown in the shade of the forest canopy. There, the coffee cherries ripen slowly, absorbing nutrients and flavors of the forest, its fallen fruits, and rich flora. A very important role in this chain has insect and nectar-eating birds. They clean the plants so there is no need to use pesticides. That fact was a leading idea for the packaging design. The other brand that has an interesting background is Zemi coffee. This brand has a clear mission – to support small coffee producers and plantations all over the world and help the farmers to continue with sustainable production. The owner of this brand is coming from the family of coffee farmers, so he is very much involved in every step of the production too. Working with these small companies gave us a chance to learn more about the process and be involved. Also, it gave us a clear picture of the problems that need to be solved.
It became clearer that we need to think not only about the designs but also about packaging production as an important step. When you are designing for established brands with strong budgets, you can be creative with materials. But, when you are designing for small company brands, you have limited budgets that you need to use wisely. It is already a great challenge for them to go with sustainable production and reduce CO2 footprint. So, invest in a sustainable coffee bag’s material, in the beginning, can be a tough decision to make.
To keep the coffee fresh, packaging must meet some standards. It is extremely challenging to replace plastic or aluminum bags with plant-based, biodegradable, and CO2-neutral materials. Nowadays, there are more and more options that can be explored and used. But it takes time and money to invest. We can only support our clients and hope that they will survive the economic challenges long enough to become proud owners of all sustainable brands. One thing is for sure – now is the best time to be involved in the coffee packaging design revolution.