Civil Dawn Cold Brews
Beanspirited Beverage was looking to expand their bean (coffee) division with a new all-in-one ready-to-drink coffee beverage. Civil Dawn's concept and package design was born.
THE BRIEF
BeanSpirited has an odd concept of a business, combining the love of coffee and handcrafted distilled spirits. They are a one stop shop that operates under two separate divisions: Coffee Beverages and Spirits. Overall, they only distribute Colorado Artisan Beverages, so every spirit or bean company they sell is local to the state. Their employees take a grass roots/laid back approach to their products and their marketing.... just good quality stuff, for good people, created in a good place.
BeanSpirited Beverage is looking to expand the cold-brew or instant drink offering in their coffee (bean) division. The product will be a new all in one drink to boost your energy any time any place without having to have coffee pot or equipment to make the high-quality beans they offer in an on the go way. Stumptown Cold Brew is their biggest competitor.
THE GOAL
Design a brand that highlights the culture and spirit of Colorado. The brand/packaging should have an artisan feel. The packaging should have text to support the fact that the drink gives you tons of energy.
THE SOLUTION
The story behind the name: Colorado has 4 National Parks, 42 State Parks, and is known for having 300 plus days of sunshine to enjoy them from dawn to dusk. Since people typically drink coffee in the morning, I shifted my focus on the word 'dawn,' but did you know that there are technically 3 dawns each morning? There is an Astronomical, Nautical, and a Civil dawn. Civil dawn is when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon and occurs just before sunrise and correspondingly, Civil dusk is when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon and occurs just after the sun sets.
The logo: is based on a scientific diagram that explains the degrees of civil dawn and dusk. I chose a font with rough edges to give the brand an artisanal feel. The phrase “civil dawn to civil dusk” is the brand's tagline and it emphasizes the boost of energy the coffee drinks give you. I included similar language on the packaging to support this fact with a claim that drinking Civil Dawn Cold Brews will have you feeling ready to tackle the tallest of the 14ers. The "14ers" refer to the 58 Colorado mountain peaks that are over 14,000 feet above sea level. The tallest 14er is Mt. Elbert and its ridgeline is also silhouetted on the packaging.
The packaging colors: draws from two inspirations. Firstly, I started by muting the hues from the Colorado flag. Each of these colors signify a piece of Colorado. The Blue stands for the blue skies, gold is the plentiful sunny days, red the soil, and white for the snowcapped mountains. The colors were then further altered to mimic the sky at civil dawn.
Finally, to enhance an artisanal feel to the packaging I muted the colors with a transparent texture layer that makes the label and packaging appear to be printed on hand made substrate or kraft paper. I also a used a distressed vintage looking font called “Steelworks Vintage” for the words ‘Cold Brew’ and added various ornamental glyphs from the font “Rufina Stencil Ornaments” to fill negative spaces. The logo is assembled to resemble a butcher shop stamp and reads as hand-crafted. I also think this would work as a wax seal stamp that could be incorporated to seal the bottle caps in wax and enhance the handcrafted look.
