The Brew Cafe is a coffee shop/bar started by Adam Crane, a tattoo artist and entrepreneur located in West Lansing. After joining the military in 2007, Adam was introduced to tattooing by a sergeant and soon after established Ministry Ink Tattoos.
Ten years later, he was inspired to create a coffee shop in the bottom floor of his building, The Brew Cafe. Serving both coffee and beer, the shop is uniquely positioned to reach out to the local community and provide a place for community and acceptance.
The logo design process involved a lot of forward-thinking. Not only would it need to capture the essence and flair of the coffee shop, but the future bar that was to be installed later in the year. Taking inspiration from Adam's tattoo shop, I utilized a blackletter typeface that attempted to evoke a similar flavor as his own artistic sense as a tattoo artist. The wordmark is primarily successful because of its duality of modernity and antiquity that would appeal to both target demographics of 20-35 year-olds that enjoy craft coffee as they work from a laptop in addition to the 40-55 year-olds that would be more likely to habit a bar on the weekend.
The brand identity allowed for extensions that appealed to the target demographics and retained a similar tone and feel without feeling repetitive.
