Issue 03 – Coffee

The packaging you usually consume when you're half asleep

Unbox Inbox is a weekly newsletter packed with packaging inspiration and observations

Hello again! I hope you’re enjoying this issue with some coffee, whether it’s your morning cup or a pick-me-up sometime before your coffee curfew. Writing this issue felt a bit like creeping on an ex’s instagram because I haven’t been a regular coffee drinker since 2017. I miss coffee dearly, and while I get the occasional *decaf* fix, it’s not the same. I guess this is what I get for going on 3+ stop coffee crawls in my early 20s and accidentally drinking an entire bottle of Stumptown cold brew concentrate in one sitting. All to say, if your sleep isn’t derailed by caffeine, live it up for me.

☕ This is a long issue, so you may need to hit “expand” or read it in your browser ☕

A Coffee Deep Dive

There is a LOT of coffee packaging out there, which isn’t all that surprising when you remember that caffeine is a drug–that is legal. I only consume coffee with my eyes and nose these days, so the brands I’m showing may or may not make good coffee. However, I want to remain sensitive to the fact that so many companies these days are hiding subpar–or sometimes downright shitty–products with good branding (the irony of me being a designer of consumer packaged goods is not lost on me). So if you purchase beans from one of these brands and it tastes like a cup of dirty office keurig coffee, don’t come for me. Now let’s look at some different package designs through the lens of some very unofficial consumer archetypes.

1. The coffee drinker with a pile of unframed art and posters waiting to be hung on their already art-clad walls

This archetype is me, and to be honest I would probably have a hard time throwing any of these bags out. Touchy Coffee’s seasonal bags (top row) are unmatched, but I also audibly gasped when I stumbled upon Sweden’s Lykke Kaffegårdar’s bags (third row). What’s smart business about this approach is that the limited-release (and sometimes frame-worthy) nature makes them highly covetable and collectible.

Touchy Coffee, Luna Coffee, Lykke Kaffegårdar, Four Letter Word Coffee, Langøra Kaffe, Never Coffee, Fruity Coffee Coll.

2. The coffee drinker born after 1997, or who consumes coffee like they were

By which I mean…they can drink coffee whenever they please. Some of these brands are Gen-Z-owned, and some just look like they are. What I love about them is that there is no blanding in sight. What I don’t love about them is that in a few years they’ll all be easily lumped into some new ubiquitous cultural term. I’m talking about the cartoon mascots, nostalgic type, gradients, 70s flat retro style, color color color, and touch of psychedelia. Another extremely 2023 thing to note–Crooked Coffee (fourth row) is owned by a political media company and you can shop beans “by podcast” on their site 🫠.

Couplet Coffee, Chamberlain Coffee, Swerl Coffee, Goshen Coffee Roasters, Perc Coffee, Crooked Coffee, Dune Coffee Roasters, Coffee Bae, Morning Matters, Creature Coffee Co.

3. The coffee drinker who is an old soul and collects coffee bags like vinyl

I know I know, you’re like, wasn’t she was just being critical about brands going all in on the retro thing? Well here’s the thing: sometimes you can be of the moment within a design trend, and still execute it in a way that will age beyond the trend. I’m mostly talking about Lip Service (third row) and Dark Matter (fourth row). The former took a very 70s roller disco design element and abstracted it in a way that feels like it could exist in any era, and the latter executed the “trend” in such a way that it feels more like the original than the current imitation of the trend (if you added some grain to the images they could blend in on The Peculiar Manicule). Unrelated, Fireproof Coffee’s social is so good and people will be imitating it.

Fireproof Coffee, Process Coffee, Lip Service Coffee, Triple Co. Roast, Bake29S, Fritz Company, Rise with Apollo Coffee, Foxtrot, Lady Falcon Coffee Club

4. The coffee drinker who loves white space even though their apartment always looks like a tornado just ripped through it

You could argue some of these are bland. I still think they work. After all, good design is highly subjective. I also really love a boxed coffee and a stout coffee bag.

Hermanos Colombian Coffee Roasters, Nam Coffee, Homecoming Coffee, Little Wolf Coffee Roasters, Dayglow Coffee, Level Ground Coffee Roasters, Orbita Coffee, Verlé Coffee, Canyon Coffee, Rosso Coffee Roasters, Big Face, Assembly Coffee, Color Coffee Roasters, Wepa! Coffee, Nomad Coffee

5. The coffee drinker who was a coffee nerd before it was cool to be a coffee nerd

I can all but guarantee that this is good coffee. When I was drinking 3 *free* large coffees a day when I was 24 and doing social media for a restaurant group, these were the beans the restaurants carried. I hate to say it (or maybe I love to), but at a certain point, does your product even need good branding or design if the product is good? Or better yet, addictive? Some of the best designers I know don’t even show their work on their site, they just list their contact info. I guess what I’m trying to say is that these brands could totally phone in their design and their sales probably wouldn’t drop, so I respect what they’re doing all the more.

Stumptown, Tandem, Four Barrel, Sightglass, Partners, Coffee Manufactory, Lot 61, Counter Culture

6. The coffee drinker who is a jaded creative or marketer tired of the moodboard effect, and lights up when they see something fresh and original

What I’m realizing is this–I know design is good when it gives me imposter syndrome. How did they get there? Could I pull an original design like that out of my brain? This is the work that starts the next generation of moodboards, and I can guarantee you they didn’t get there by looking at what everyone else was doing.

In the words of

Nikita Walia

, “To build more exciting beauty brands (and, let’s be real, brands in general) we must focus on fluency instead of relevance. Cultural fluency is the practice of understanding the context in which images, signs, and symbols operate – relevance, on the other hand, starts with building a moodboard and imitating what you’ve seen before. Relevance creates images that are devoid of context but work and fluency build new meaning. In other words: stop putting stuff on a moodboard and go outside. Read books! See museum exhibits! Find meaning, not vibes.”

Batch Coffee Club, Dalston Coffee (curious how much it costs to produce those adorable little boxes), Rigo, Cama Coffee Roasters (same $$ question), Bonita Coffee (talk about innovation)

PS, thanks to everyone who responded to my call on Instagram for their favorite coffee brands with good design! This is all more fun when I get to nerd out on it with you.

Time Travel Time

As you saw above, hardly anyone is doing canned coffee these days. Even Folger’s switched to plastic because their customers wanted something “easier to handle and with less sharp edges.” That’s probably true, but I’d guess it had more to do with money. A few years ago Blue Bottle played with packaging their beans in pressure-sealed cans in an “expensive experiment” towards sustainability and freshness, but based on what I’ve seen on their site and in stores recently, it failed. Whether one packaging form is more or less sustainable than another is rarely straightforward, and I’m always wary of brands who preach about how sustainable their packaging is because more often than not it’s just greenwashing (that’s been my experience at least). So with that said, please enjoy these cute, kitschy, occasionally cringy cans from before we realized we were destroying our planet!

And this excerpt from an ad in the January 10, 1949 issue of LIFE that shows how coffee turns us from bears…into angels.

Packing Peanuts

(Those loose leftover pieces at the bottom of the box)

Forget recyclable and compostable, how about edible to-go cups? And they’re vegan (…because palm oil). “The world’s healthiest protein coffee” induces an automatic eye roll from me, but maybe you’re into that sort of thing. And then there’s this “ridiculously healthy coffee” company that has independent lab test results on their site to prove it. But my question is–is anyone not drinking coffee because it’s “unhealthy”? Coffee freak sticker packs for adorning your favorite tumbler (I’m on my second mustard and couldn’t love it more). There are many reasons I’d like to live in Sweden and these coffee advent calendars are two of them. Or maybe it’s the “kaffegrams.” Verve Coffee is in Target now? Good for them. I’m not a syrup-in-my-hot-bev-person, but this baklava one is making me reconsider. A classic NYC deli cup “but more refined,” or cigarettes and coffee minus the nicotine. Learned via

Perfectly Imperfect

that Café Kitsuné collabed with artist Isabella Lalonde on a glass blown coffee cup ring aand it’s cute. Remember the tortoise shell spoons at Happy Bones that everyone was stealing in 2014? Well if you weren’t a klepto, you can still buy these. Folger’s iconic jingle (which has been stuck in my head all week) sold for $90k in 2021 to a fan who will now earn royalties whenever it’s played. That’s one way to balance out the $92/month the average American spends on coffee.

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