Nordbrew
A full identity rebuild for a coffee roastery moving from farmers' markets into its first retail lease.
The Brief
Nordbrew had spent four years building word-of-mouth loyalty at a single farmers' market stall — no logo beyond a hand-lettered chalkboard sign. Their first retail lease meant they needed a mark that could survive a storefront, a bag, and a cup sleeve without losing the handmade feeling that got them there.
The founders were clear about one thing: no coffee-cup icon, no steam lines. Every roastery mark they'd seen used one of the two.
The Mark
The final mark is drawn from the shape of a roasting drum's viewing window — a detail only someone who'd stood at their roaster would recognise, which was the point. It reads as an abstract "N" at a glance and as the drum window on close inspection.
It had to work stamped into a bag at one colour, so the first proof was done in a single ink before a single palette colour was chosen.
Palette
Pulled directly from the roast itself — the colour of the bean at first crack, the paper bag, and the drum steel — rather than a generic "coffee brown."