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Collected Coffee

Collected Coffee

Shawn Katz
July 21, 2016
2 Comments

New York-based Collected Coffee seeks out the world’s finest growers and specialty roasters to deliver a carefully curated coffee experience to the doorsteps of subscribers around the world.

We worked with Collected Coffee from their beginnings to create an intelligent, cultured, and curious brand designed to appeal to the increasingly sophisticated coffee enthusiast. We designed the packaging and printed material, managed production, and developed a website that serves as both a reference for aficionados and a window into the wider world of coffee culture. We provided art direction and set design for the brand imagery which was photographed by the talented Cindy Boyce. In opting to pair a crisp and minimalist aesthetic with a serious dose of substance, we sought to give voice to the company’s passion for the product, and for the stories of the people who produce and enjoy it.



Collected Coffee's boldly curatorial approach is quite unique, in that it eschews the conventional mantra of consumer choice in favour of a guided exploration of a distinct bean and roast delivered to subscribers every month.

As such, the task here was to capture the novel quality of this coffee subscription service, which prides itself on its diverse selections informed by the finest expertise. We needed to successfully target the sophisticated connoisseurs, while at the same time attracting the curious enthusiasts who are willing (and able) to invest more in their coffee ritual for a higher quality product and more holistic experience.

With this in mind, we set out to create an intelligent and intriguing brand that would intuitively convey the team’s knowledge and care for the product, as well as their passion for the people who produce and enjoy it. Because of its subscription-based nature, we also considered the product as a fixture in customers’ homes, and sought to create a point of interest that would be kept visible on their counters.

Inspired by print publications, we settled on a design that was essentialist, restrained, and heavily focused on detail, but without being cold or aloof. That’s where the quirkier elements come in, which aim to balance out the other aesthetic components.


Each monthly package of coffee comes with a z-fold booklet featuring the backstory of the coffee's origins, roaster, and process, as well as a recommended brewing method with detailed instructions. To underline the love and care at the heart of the Collected brand, a hand-signed “Thank you” card completes the ensemble, with both the cards and booklets printed on Crane’s Lettra 100% cotton paper, providing them with an extra soft and luxurious touch.

Clearly, this is a serious coffee brand with a strong dose of substance, and it was important to select a content-friendly text typeface that would be clear and readable, especially on screen. We therefore settled on the Calluna typeface, which fit equally well with our aesthetic and functional considerations.

For the coffee bags themselves, the biggest challenge was in achieving a high printing quality for relatively low-quantity recurring orders, and in a production geography that we weren't previously familiar with. Through research, many tests, and collaboration with the client and printers, we ultimately settled on matte white thermoplastic polymer bags (polyethylene terephthalate and linear low-density polyethylene, to be precise), with the logo hot-stamped in matte blue.

Finally, in order to match the paper of the coffee bag labels to the fine vellum quality of the accompanying print material, we selected Strathmore Bright White Wove, and had them printed in small runs by a local printer, rather than by the usual in-house label printer.

In addition to the product, we designed a website that serves as the showcase for the Collected brand and the hub of their cultural and educational mission. Developed as both a reference for aficionados and a window into the wider world of coffee culture, it houses detailed brew guides, the profiles of all coffee farms and roasters selected to date, and an online magazine containing interviews and features that shine a spotlight on the human stories behind your morning brew.

Adobe Illustrator and InDesign were used throughout the process to create the designs for the packaging and branding.






We've been extremely overwhelmed by the response to our Collected Coffee project. The brand has been featured in over a dozen publications to date, and we've been contacted by magazines and book publishers in Germany, Singapore and China with offers to feature our work and studio in print. So all in all it's been a resounding success for us, and it's been very humbling and encouraging to see all the attention it's been garnering.

The coffee is truly divine. We suggest you try it!

Shawn Katz

Fivethousand Fingers is a design studio working globally from Montréal. Led by founding partners with backgrounds in the arts, the studio specializes in branding, typography and illustration, and strives to innovate across disciplines.

We work with clients and collaborators who share our care for the quality and experience of a product, whether it be material or virtual, commercial or experimental. Our process balances concept and craft, moving from broad strategy to fine execution.

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