Big House Beans

Deliverables: Redesigned logo, style guide, packaging, stickers, menus, marketing content.

Role: Visual Designer

Duration: 1 Year

During the initial ideation phase, I wanted to stay true to John’s story, and played with black and white as the main colors. The coffee labels were not only to distinguish the different types of roasts, but also symbolized the hope coffee plays in the story.

The end result was a bag with symbolism and a story to be told. The side panels represent the view John saw of San Francisco while locked up in San Quentin. The stripes on the front and back panel are prison bars. The logo itself is a gun tower with a coffee mug, and the ounces are represented by tally marks. The bottom panel is a tattoo design with Psalm 34:8, meaning “Taste and see that the Lord is good”. Lastly, the back panel has a bird on a wire that sits on the zipper of the bag. Once removed, the bird “flies away”.

I communicated with a pre-press technician in Hawaii to help us with the overall print of the bag. We used three techniques to give the bag dimension - Matte, Gloss, and Knock-Out. The overall bag was printed black, but we added gloss to the white parts as well as the fences on the side panels. The pinstripes and the tattoo design on the bottom were “knocked out”; Essentially, those parts were left untreated and kept the silver foil of the bag.

The most difficult part of this project was working with the owner, who’s life story is very close to the heart of the company’s mission. Sometimes it was difficult for us to see eye to eye on some design decisions (Such as the text on the sticker labels), and compromising on what looked good to him vs. what customers would find useful. In the end, I think I was able to successfully communicate why my decisions were necessary for the success of the brand.

Since the finish of this project, Big House Beans has expanded from being just a roastery, to opening 3 cafes in the East Bay, and winning the Golden Bean award in 2019. Their following on Instagram has grown from 300 to 4,000+.