The Good Beans (Branding and Packaging)

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The Good Beans

Branding Project

The Good Beans is an imaginary, environmentally conscious coffee brand that aims to make coffee consumption sustainable and ethical. With workers in the coffee industry facing issues like debt bondage, child labor, and exposure to dangerous pesticides every day, The Good Beans aims to raise awareness for worker's rights and promote a healthy and safe work environment. The Good Beans also aims to maintain a minimal carbon footprint and reduce waste through reusable, compostable, and biodegradable packaging.

This was a semester-long school project that I ended up expanding on after the deadline. The assignment was to pick a discipline in the design industry to learn more about, and create my own project and timeline surrounding that discipline. I chose to focus on branding, so I created an imaginary brand that embodies my personal beliefs. My goal was to create a brand identity that appealed to younger generations and successfully translated the message of sustainability.

Pictured Above: A ceramic Good Beans mug, designed in Adobe Illustrator and printed through sublimation printing. Final image shot on Canon EOS Rebel T5.

Process

I started by creating StyleScapes to explore different looks for my brand. I knew I wanted The Good Beans to really lean into the idea of environmentalism, but I didn't think that was necessarily synonymous with an earth-tone based palette. I thought a nice contrast to the typical muted greens of a natural brand would be a vibrant/colorful aesthetic, so I created a StyleScape for that, along with a traditionally natural StyleScape. Both designs were really appealing to me, so I ended up morphing the two together to create the third StyleScape shown below.

Pictured Above: Vibrant, Natural, and Vibrant/Natural StyleScapes for The Good Beans branding project, made with found imagery and assembled in Adobe Photoshop.

After establishing the overall vibe of my brand, I moved on to the logo design. I started this process by creating five physical thumbnails. After receiving some feedback from my professor, I decided to have a little Logo Splurge (generate as many logo designs as possible, and pick a few to refine). My final logo design has rough edges to mimic a stamp, and has two official variations.

Pictured Above: Logo Splurge and narrowed down designs

Pictured Above: Final Good Beans logo design

Style Guide

One of my final deliverables for this project was a Style Guide. After establishing the brand identity, I made a short Style Guide that covered typefaces, color palette, paragraph styles, button styles (for potential future website design), and logo styles. I used this guide to maintain continuity between various designs and platforms. In my final packaging designs, I used only the color palette established in my Style Guide.

Pictured Above: The Good Beans Style Guide.

Packaging

Because I wanted to focus on sustainability in this project, all of the packaging I created is reusable. There are five products that I designed packaging for: two Keep It Simple Syrups (Rich Caramel and Vanilla Bean), a travel bottle for iced coffee, a mug, and a bag of coffee beans. The syrup pumps and travel bottle are glass with aluminum tops, the mug is ceramic, and the bag is canvas with a vinyl logo. All of the designs on the travel bottle were cut out with a laser cutter, but if they were to be reproduced, the designs would ideally be printed on the glass.

This was the most time consuming, yet rewarding part of the process. It was super exciting to see all of my designs come to fruition, and I'm really glad I decided to expand on this project because all of the packaging was produced after the project. This project is now viewable on the Packaging of the World website! Feel free to check it out HERE.

Pictured Above: The Good Beans Keep It Simple Syrups in Vanilla Bean (right) and Rich Caramel (left). Labels designed in Adobe Illustrator and printed on sticker paper. Final images shot on Canon EOS Rebel T5.