Common Groundz Cafe needs a rebranding.
Common Groundz Cafe is my local coffee shop of choice. I'm usually in there for at least an hour. The first 2 months they were open I was in there for nearly 10 hours at a time almost every day. The owners are a riot, the place is spacious, but cozy and the food and coffee are to die for. It's really the best coffee house in Richmond, hands down. They needed to have a new identity to match their personality, but they didn't have enough money to pay for a designer. I gladly took coffee as payment and took on the project. It was a lot more difficult than I had expected.
It started out really poorly. They must have thought I was joking, but this is what I came up with. They didn't implement it, but at least they saw I had enough know how to keep going.
It took a while, but Lindsay and I finally found a typeface that matched their clean, modern atmosphere and kooky, wild attitudes. From there we needed to come up with a mark that would match the typeface. This was difficult.
This is the closest I had gotten to something resembling an acceptable logo. I kept coming back to this G mug because I liked the character and look of it. It was the perfect way to match the rest of the logo, but I didn't have a good reason to keep it around. Until one day it all clicked together...
The mug turned in to a C and G for Common Groundz without much hassle. The two different versions are for sizing purposes: one has a much simpler swirl in the mug than the other. I'm really happy with the end product.
This rebranding is slowing making its way into all their publications, menus and even the signs around the sides of the building. As a result, directly or indirectly, they have turned a profit after being in business for 2 years.
