The Blend Brand Identity & Website Design
THE BLEND COFFEE COMPANY is a coffee shop in Carbondale, Colorado whose goal was to create a warm, open and welcoming look and feel that implied "Hey there! Why don’t you come in and stay a while? We’d love to make you a delicious cup of coffee and hear about what’s going on in your world."
The owner was really inspired by the classic red LaMarzocco espresso machine so we took our main color cue from it. Staying true to the desire to create a warm place that appealed to a mix of people, it was important to mix warm and cool, industrial and modern, while maintaining the community feel.
We achieved this goal for the logo by creatively mixing fonts to represent a diverse community that blends well together. Hand-made letters that we printed ourselves were used for "THE BLEND" text and a friendly, modern and unique wide san serif font was selected for "coffee company".
The star between "THE" and "BLEND" is representative of the North Star, symbolizing a guidepost along one's way and adding an extra touch of welcoming comfort to the design.
Once the logo was finalized, we moved on to the collateral pieces needed to support the shop's message and there were many (too many to share here). We created a sandwich board sign, building sign and door signage. Coffee mugs, to-go coffee cup stamps, customer loyalty cards, menus, stickers, t-shirts, and various advertising campaigns all played a role in supporting the brand presence at a visually strong, consistent level. We've chosen a selection of the collateral items to showcase here.
For the website, Wade wanted to include strong visuals that reinforce the quality and care that goes into making the coffee drinks and baked goods while continuing to maintain the modern, clean identity that had been created. Simple, elegant and mouthwatering pages are what we achieved.
The Blend quickly became a place locals and tourists alike sought out to enjoy both a terrific cup of coffee as well as an open, inviting place to hang out for a while.
In 2014, the coffee shop was sold and the new owner rebranded so the site is no longer up.