ABOUT

The problem with selling coffee online is you don’t get to smell or taste it. With such a competitive market for gourmet and artisanal coffee, how do you stand out?

That was the challenge facing Royal Flush as York Coffee Emporium’s sales hit a glass ceiling.

The old ‘blanding’ on the standard craft bag had no story, no character, and limited visual appeal. It didn’t stand out from the other coffee producers on Google Shopping or Meta ads.

York Coffee Emporium had to be convinced that to grow, to be stocked in retail and to take its products further afield than Yorkshire, it needed to tell its story and become more appealing from the first impression.

Royal Flush invested the time to research York Coffee Emporium’s ideal customers, the history and heritage of York and its renown for manufacturing quality and developed a brand identity that reflects all these key attributes.

The logo marque is a rune which reflects York’s history of Vikings and the Roman etchings in the stone walls of the city. It’s a strong and confident brand that is flexible in its use, from tiny favicon to large format sign, the YE rune sets a tone of assertive quality.

This is complemented by typefaces that utilise the Romanesque serifs of Big Caslon and the Scandi-sleek simplicity of Hypatia Sans.

For many, coffee is both a daily essential and a luxury. As UK coffee drinkers have moved beyond freeze-dried instant to embrace freshly ground, expertly prepared drinks, the brand identity needed to reflect both its premium quality and a sense of indulgence.

The colour palette and bag were designed to enhance the logo marque and its premium quality brand position with a striking teal colour, black panels, and a gold foil rune. A subtle repeat pattern of the YE rune was introduced to add a luxury aesthetic.

Customer surveys and research highlighted the need to make sustainability a more prominent part of our messaging. Sustainability has always been at the heart of our approach, and we reinforced this by sourcing bags made from recycled plastic—designed to be fully recyclable after use. This is printed onto the bottom of the pack.

Further to the core brand attributes, Royal Flush was tasked with creating a product identification system that enabled flexibility for new product development, including seasonal and small-batch varieties.

Coffee, like wine, has lots of variety. From altitude to water and soil quality and the directional aspect of the crop fields, coffee has many influencing factors on the taste profiles, and these characteristics can be as individual as the people imbibing the different roasts and blends.

Royal Flush created characters that defined these attributes, giving each product its own identity. The label dioramas use anthropomorphised animals and reflect the country of origin and flavour notes for single-origin varieties, and for the blends, the main characters are human-centric with scenes that reflect York.

The characters and scenes are inspired by global travels, with each label serving as a ‘postcard’ from its region – inviting coffee lovers to embark on a journey just as they would when exploring the diverse world of coffee.

The design style took inspiration from Dadaism and Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations, with a surreal absurdism that creates interest and depth, further expanding the storytelling.

Royal Flush developed complicated prompts to generate the character heroes using AI, then crafted the dioramas in Illustrator and Photoshop. This enables faster creation of label assets, which will be essential as new varieties of coffee can arrive at short notice.

To add to the narrative, the tone of voice reflects the quintessential wit and humour of British culture with nods to Stephen Fry and Roald Dahl. This brings the world to life with quirky copy and voiceovers used in presentations, ads and social content.

All of this creates the opportunity for York Emporium to educate coffee enthusiasts with an entertaining and immersive world across its advertising, website, social content and products.

It really is the world’s most intriguing coffee.