We got a Glow Up…

So we’ve been rocking the whole minimal aesthetic for a while now, particularly when it comes to our packaging.

As we enter a new era of Grindsmith we thought it the perfect time to nudge our packaging into that new era too!

New beginnings…

A couple of years ago, you may remember quite a big thing happened and everything was shaken, flipped and thrown on its head. Lots of businesses had to transform and adjust to this new normal and one thing we did was look at where we could cut back, in order to keep all of our staff with us and our shops open. Our packaging took a hit, we cut corners and stripped it right down to basics. While we certainly don’t regret doing this, it makes us a little sad to see our coffee with an exterior that doesn’t reflect its interior.

This project has been almost a year in the making, after hitting a few bumps and road blocks along the way, however this has given time for some serious development (you may remember a little insta, story Poll this time last year, that unfortunately never got off the ground) Finally we are starting to see our ideas become reality, and it feels great!

We have a few exciting things going on behind the scenes at the moment, so it seemed like the right time to pick up where we left of with the design process. Sometimes a break from your creative work can do wonders…you see it with fresh eyes, from a new perspective and your end goal might look slightly different (which in this case was all of the above)

The Design Process

If you’ve seen a few glimpses, of our new look packaging already, it’s probably obvious that we have taken inspiration from topographic maps. These maps show us the varying altitudes of certain areas using contour lines, connecting areas of equal elevation. Altitude is such an important factor when it comes to growing coffee,  and determines the quality of the beans. The patterns created by these maps are really quite beautiful. We decided to look at topography maps of farms we have sourced green coffee from, and take snippets and zoomed in areas to study. We began adjusting and distorting, playing with colour and contrast, and watched as these images turned into elegant and interesting art.

From here we started to create linear drawings and illustration of these maps, varying line size, colour and negative space. From variation to variation, the vision grew (and we were admittedly dreaming in 2D squiggly lines…) We eventually settled on a design that felt very much ‘us’ and began to play with layout and colour.

Our colour choices drew heavily from the flavour wheel! Common flavours in our coffees are a selection of rich berry colours and earthy hues, which we took as a starting point for creating our packaging colour palette.

We are almost at the finish line, with just a few tweaks to take care of, as we enter the end of this first phase! We hope to be always upping our game, where we can, so expect phase two to be just as sweet as this little upgrade…