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Identity & packaging
Halden Coffee
A warm, unhurried identity for a small-batch roaster — built to feel as good on a kraft bag as on a café wall.
Identity
Packaging
Signage
Client
Halden Coffee Roasters
Year
2026
Role
Brand & packaging designer
01 — Overview
A roaster with a quiet voice in a loud aisle.
Halden roasts in small batches and sells mostly through its own café. The founders wanted a brand that felt considered rather than trendy — something regulars would recognise from across the room.
The work covered the name’s lettering, a flexible packaging system and the signage for their first café.
Deliverables
Wordmark & monogram
Packaging system
Café signage
Brand guidelines
02 — Challenge
Standing out without shouting.
Specialty coffee shelves are crowded with bright illustrations and loud claims. Halden’s product was good enough to speak softly — the challenge was making quiet read as confident, not plain.
Competitor shelf audit
The café before the rebrand
03 — Approach
We started with the bag, because it travels furthest. Every decision was tested on a real kraft sample before it reached the screen.
Listen & audit
Interviews with the founders and baristas, plus a shelf audit of forty competing bags.
Sketch the mark
Hand-drawn lettering explorations that settled on a calm, slightly condensed wordmark.
Build the system
A modular label that flexes for origin, roast date and tasting notes without redesigning each bag.
04 — Solution
A system that brews consistency.
One wordmark, a monogram for small surfaces and a single label grid that handles every coffee Halden will ever roast.
05 — Results
The new system launched across retail bags, takeaway cups and café signage in the same week, so regulars met the brand everywhere at once. New roasts now go from cupping table to shelf without a redesign — the team simply fills in the label grid.
12
roasts released on the new label grid
3
touchpoints launched together: bags, cups and signage
Mahendran found the one idea our coffee was missing, then made every bag, cup and sign carry it.
Anika Rao
Founder, Halden Coffee
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