Grean Matcha Cafe Rebrand

The Challenge

Though visually intriguing, the branding for Grean, a Seattle-based matcha cafe, is limited and inconsistent across outdoor signage, print, and merchandise. Additionally, the existing logo doesn’t represent the energy of their pop-ups or the strong community they’ve been building since the start.

The Solution

The new brand identity pulls from their roots as a small pop up run out of a town house in beacon hill: “gather as strangers, sip as friends”. The rebrand utilizes a library of uniquely crafted assets, textures, and mixed typography, that maintains a high level of modernity without compromising its hand-touched feel. The set deliverables showcase a new logo, signage, merchandise, and collateral that all had different requirements and yet remain apart of the same visual family.

Roles & Duration

Roles

Art Direction, Branding, Layout, Illustration, Environmental

Duration

10 Weeks | April 2024 - June 2024

Tools

Photoshop, Figma, Illustrator, Indesign, Procreate, Notion

Research & Discovery

The first step was to familiarize myself with the brand. Having been to a handful of their pop-ups already I had a pretty good feel for the energy of the brand, its space, and the personalities of its founders. So I could distill its strong and weak points. The ambiance is so unique compared to most cafes, with all the attendees intermingling. This community connected-ness is what would drive the overall concept for the rebrand

Concept

From the research jumpstart, I distilled the words into a visual tone, settling on a mix of clean modernity in the colors and sans serif type, and something more hand-touched to convey the artisanal aspect of their matcha offerings. From this point, I would then dive into the logo, which acted as a north star to help keep consistency in the other pieces.