A café within a sports centre, designed to feel like neither.
WithinCafe needed a brand identity that could hold its own as a hospitality destination while sitting in cohesion with the interior design of the sports centre it lives within. The client came in with strong taste, a clear vision and a deep affinity for symbolic identity - but no visual world to bring it all together. The strategy began with the environment itself. The colour palette was anchored to the interior design of the café, ensuring every packaging item, signage element and customer-facing asset would feel like a natural extension of the space rather than a brand applied on top of it. From there, the brand was built outward - colour, illustration, typography and packaging all working as one considered system designed to feel both grounded and elevated.
A brand with a story worth holding in your hands.
The tiger became the brand's symbolic anchor - a creature carrying meaning across cultures and a quiet nod to the strength, presence and quality that defines the café. From there a refined wordmark, flexible logo icon and bespoke illustration system were developed to bring the brand to life across every touchpoint. The illustration captures two distinct customer moments - a younger boy in his sports kit mid-gelato beside an older woman with her espresso and croissant - directly referencing what the café serves, with the WithinCafe logo icon integrated into the artwork as the flowers in the scene. The packaging system carries the same intention. Coffee bags use minimal confident typography against soft sky-tone backgrounds, with each blend differentiated by its own pastel hue - lavender for Signature, apricot for Decaf. Coffee cups, takeaway packaging, gelato cups, wholesale bean bags, café signage and customer loyalty cards complete the system. The brand now operates as a complete, production-ready identity that sits effortlessly within the sports centre environment while standing entirely on its own as a hospitality destination.
Next projects.
(2016-25©)
