After finding the right name, we needed our Brand Identity to perfectly translate what we and our roastery are all about. We are endurance athletes, eager to go out and explore the great outdoors. Our coffee should be the fuel for an adventure as well as a reward after a hard training session or a challenge completed. While committing to great quality, it needs to be approachable, fun and cool.

We assigned the Oslo-based creative agency Kaffikaze to design our new brand identity. The team of illustrator Lars Huse and graphic designers Ingri Johnsen and Harald Vøyle are probably best known for organizing multiple Norwegian AeroPress Championships alongside really cool posters and merchandise around the events. We had met them on a few occasions at coffee competitions and international community events and they were the perfect fit: They are pioneers in the Specialty Coffee community, have a great sense of humour and fantastic creativity as well as precise assessment and visual realisation. And while being an integral part of the Norwegian Specialty Coffee community, they are not afraid to think and act outside of the box.

Kaffikaze was let free rein to create the new visual identity with the only condition being our name and including the color blue. They perfectly captured who we are, our core values and what our brand should represent. It may not have been the standard Specialty Coffee design but it really hit the nail on the head. It's in your face, yet simple and still is full of cool details:

The "T" in the center of the logo is formed as a plus (+) sign which also can be read as the Swiss cross and gives a reference to our location in Switzerland
Both the V and the A are designed as arrows pointing up or down emphasizing the vertical
Our logo can be placed horizontally or vertically and reads well in both orientations
When placed vertically, the E forms three vertical lines
When placed vertically, the "T" and the "I" form a plus (+) and minus (-) which symbolize the positive and negative terminals you will find on every battery - and transcripts into energy
The “C” of original font used for our logo was altered slightly to horizontal/parallel lines which gives a vertical impact when the logo is placed vertically. And it gives a hint to Helvetica, Switzerland’s most powerful contribution to typographic development.

The illustration of the Matterhorn represents our location in the world: It is the most iconic and recognizable mountain in Switzerland, known the world over. On the back of our coffee bags, you can find an illustration of our Volkswagen T2 coffee bus which we use as a mobile espresso bar at events.

Each origin has its own illustration of a sportsperson, with the type of sport assigned to continents or regions: Sports with bikes (African coffees), sports with boards (Americas), running (Brazil). For our blends we chose sports gear (carabiner, chainring). And for some coffee specials, there's an illustration to visually communicate the specific attributes of the coffee (like the chillout beach chair for Decaf coffee).

The hashtag #coffeewithaltitude was chosen to reflect both our lighthearted approach (pun with “attitude”) as well as high-grown coffee and regions of higher altitude which you can find plenty of in Switzerland.

We really have embraced our new brand identity and love every part of it. It gives us the chance to shine a light on each specific characteristic of who we are and what we want to shout out about. It lets us keep making and drinking coffee fun and light hearted, no matter if we're talking to a Specialty Coffee veteran or a newbie.

Looking Back Part 7 - New Brand Identity