A 14-week engagement covering naming, identity, packaging, signage, and a small e-commerce site for a third-wave roaster opening their first café.
Lumen's founders had spent seven years sourcing single-origin beans for other people's cafés. They knew their coffee. What they didn't have was a way to talk about it that felt like them — equal parts technical and warm.
The category was crowded with two stereotypes: monastic minimalism (white on white) and overstated craftsmanship (kraft paper everywhere). Neither felt right.
We built the identity around a custom italic wordmark — a single drawn character that becomes the brand's voice. From there, a tight type stack (a humanist serif paired with a geometric sans) and a confident, restrained color palette built around one warm accent.
For packaging, we developed a system that scales from single-origin bags (with full provenance notes) to 1kg wholesale sacks, all using the same grid and a small set of icons.
Lumen opened in spring 2026. Within four months they were profitable. The wholesale business doubled. The bags they ship — and the brand they built — became reference material in the trade.