Lodge Café is a passion project where I decided to create a made-up cafe and design an entire brand around it. I wanted to do something out of my comfort zone since I don’t usually design with a rustic theme. The cafe I created would be well known for its cookies, so I wanted to design packaging for it.
I wanted to show as much use for the logo I designed by designing different items such as coasters, a paper bag, a coffee cup sleeve, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt.
Starting with the logo design, I was inspired by the hot stamps carpenters use in woodworking. I wanted the logo to have a clean but organic feel. I played around with a coffee cup pouring some coffee on the name of the café, but that didn’t speak to me since I wanted to make it look good as a hot stamp that the café could use in their location.
For the packaging, I wanted to design more than just the cookie boxes. I decided to add a paper bag and a coffee cup to give myself more chances to expand on the brand.
Due to the time constraints on this project, I had to make the first drafts of the designs immediately.
I started with the logo, and once I was done with it, I made a symbol I could use for different aspects of the designs I had in mind. Once that was done, I made a horizontal version of it to work with other items.
While looking at the set I had, I decided to make a different symbol for their social media since the original one was too big to fit in a square. I just removed the far-left bean and far-right leaf.
Using the logos and symbols I designed, I placed them on a shirt, a sweatshirt, a paper bag, coasters, and a cup sleeve.
I wanted to incorporate the symbols into the designs as much as possible to make sure it doesn't look like the logo was just slapped on an item and called it a day.
The design of the packaging didn't change much from the first draft.
My first thought was to make it into a rectangle, but I didn't want all the extra space in the corners.
My second thought was to make it into a cylinder to hug the cookies some more, but I realized that if it was put on its side, it would just roll around.
The final design I went with was a hexagon since it would eliminate all those problems along with giving it a more modern look and feel.
The overall feedback to this was good; my peers liked the meaning behind the logo and how clean but detailed it was. The only suggestion for it was that they felt it would look good with a slight tilt to it to make it look more handmade.
The feedback on the packaging was also very good; they liked the cut out of the symbol, and how the different flavours have different coloured packaging.
The design was inspired by hot stamps, which could have an organic but clean feel to them whenever they’re used on something. The rounded border can be seen as either a wooden edge, i.e. live edge, or a coffee cup stain.
I liked that it has a double meaning with the coffee cup stain being a reference to the café and the live edge referencing the theme of the café.
Since the target audience is a wide range, from teenagers to elders, the design is easy to read, but with just enough detail to garner interest.The reason I ended up going with a logo design that’s round is to make it feel like both a coffee cup stain or live edge wood.
The crossbar of the letter A was intentionally removed to make it look like the roof of a lodge.
Once I had the logo design finished, I finished up the packaging design. I wanted the different flavours to have different coloured packaging.
Since elders are a part of the target audience, I didn't want them to have a hard time picking the cookies they want off of the shelves. Having distinctly different colours in the packaging would help them even with poor vision.
The logo was then placed on other items such as a coffee cup sleeve, a paper bag, coasters, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and hot stamps. I also created different versions of their social media icons.
Since the inspiration for the logo was hot stamps, I included a mock-up of what it would look like as one.
As someone who has worked in fast food, one of the things I didn't like was being constrained to one uniform. I created the sweatshirt to give the employees an option on which one they prefer to use.The t-shirt and sweatshirt will also be available as merchandise for the café without the logo.
View mockup attributions
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Sweatshirt: Image by graphicheroco on Freepik
