Duluth Coffee Company | Package Design
Challenge
Duluth Coffee Company is a staple in the Duluth area. But despite their popularity, many coffee lovers don’t know the depth the business takes to sources, test, and roast their coffees. Duluth Coffee heavily focuses on bringing intention and integrity from cultivation to cup. It’s because of this that they offer single-sourced coffee from farmers they have actual relationships with. Owner, Eric, and his team regularly travel to the coffee farms they partner with to foster those relationships. This also gives them a first hand look at the beans and how they’re grown.
This level of care and involvement in the entire process is a huge differentiator for Duluth Coffee. So, when they came to us to create new package designs for their coffee, it was something we definitely wanted to showcase. But figuring out how to do that is what would be the challenge.
Solution
For the new package design, we dove into so many options. The sky is truly the limit with unless bag and printing options. We took this opportunity to really stretch what Duluth Coffee had done in the past; however, we can back to the classic brown bag that Duluth Coffee is known for. The simplicity stands out on the shelves and helps capture that ‘back to the roots’ care the business has for each coffee bean.
Playing off of the hand-drawn illustrations that Duluth Coffee had built up recognition around, we filled out the sides of the bags with custom illustrations as well. Except the new illustrations are nods to the coffee plant that the business takes such a special interest as well as the Ariel Lift Bridge. An homage to the company’s namesake and hometown. The two together show the connection between the coffee origins and our community. Both illustrations only show a close up portion of the bridge and the plant, giving a unique perspective. Much like how Duluth Coffee aims to bring coffee drinkers into the fold of the coffee growing and making process.
For the labels that would go on the bags, we kept them simple yet striking. However, the real work that went into these happened behind the scenes. While designing how the different type of coffees would be presented, we created an entirely new system for how Duluth Coffee talks about their various coffees. Each type has the farm and coffee name prominently present as well as the flavor notes you can expect to experience and the variety. Each coffee has a corresponding color associated with it, making the line up of all the coffee bags richly engaging.
More Beverage Package Design Work
The package design work we’ve been able to do for various companies have been some of our favorite project. Nothing beats being able to hold something tangible you’ve created. Peruse through the projects below to see other package design work we’ve done for other beverages.
