An elegant structural redesign that retains the character and history of this iconic coffee importer
With the energy and innovative spirit that one typically associates with emerging brands, it can come as a surprise that Royal Coffee Importers is swiftly approaching 40 years of green coffee importing. Given Royal’s long history in coffee, their name is synonymous with knowledge and trustworthiness and brand is easily recognizable. We partnered with Royal to rework their logo with a keen eye on innovating over the next 40 years.
Our challenge was to redesign their logo to be more elegant and readable on a variety of surfaces while retaining the character and style of their iconic brand. Consider the before and after.
At first blush, these logos aren’t radically different from each other. Instead, they are indicative of an iterative process that respects the original brand while elevating the design in subtle ways.
When we first started working with the original logo, we were challenged by the absence of original identity files. Little by little, we identified patterns in letters that could be used to clean-up the letterforms that had gotten distorted over time.
This resulted in a more balanced and refined logo that has shape consistency throughout the letterforms.
The strongest departure was losing the original black borders. This was immediately beneficial since Royal often places their logo on black backgrounds in both web and print.
Overall, the redesign finds Royal with a logo that is respectful of its legacy, cleaner, and more easily seen.
