Evie Chapman Blogger: Nice Package: Reanimator Coffee Roasters In Philadelphia

Some of our favorite designs are minimal, direct, and wear a splash of color. Check out Reanimator Coffee Roasters new look and you’ll find that it’s just that, and we love it! The Philadelphia roaster teamed up with True Hand Society for a brand update that kept the much-loved dark-arts illustration and placed it on a clean and modern package. To find out more, we spoke digitally with Director of Coffee Matt Scottoline.

When did the new coffee package design debut?

We released the new packaging design in March of this year.

Who designed the package?

The new bags started with some rough, “what if,” mockups that we made in photoshop. We had toyed around with the idea of a white bag when designing our annual “holiday” blend, and used those blends as an opportunity to not only see how our customers reacted to a white bag, but also a 10oz bag. These test runs went well, and with that confidence helping to push us forward, we met with True Hand Society, a design firm based nearby our roastery in Kensington. Jessie Mademann took the lead on the design, and helped not only refine the concept we had in mind, but think of new creative ways to expand our branding and update our logos.

Describe the details of the new design!

As a growing company, our bags have been completely utilitarian in design for a very long time. When things are moving quickly, and you don’t have the structure of a large company, it’s hard to make sweeping changes to packaging. Originally, we would order blank craft bags, and hand stamp the logo and coffee info on them. As we grew, things were still moving quickly for us, and while the bags underwent redesigns, they were generally small refinements to help with efficiency in our roasting operation, and never given the attention and critical thought we would have liked to have placed on them. After close to seven years, we were finally in a position to spend time really considering how our bags could reflect what our brand has become, and the quality of the coffees that we’re putting into them.

So, with that being said, there are a few big changes from our previous bag designs.

First, we moved away from the craft bag, and are now using matte white with a black boot. This alone was a pretty significant change for us, but we felt it helped better reflect the aesthetic we’ve established for ourselves in both our marketing and our retail locations. Additionally, we moved to a custom-proportioned 10oz bag.

Materials and sizing aside, the graphic design of the bag underwent significant changes as well. The big one everyone will notice is the migration of the original logo from the front of the bag to the back.

The front of the bag now features our new grotesque typeface logo (created by True Hand Society), as well as colorful, pastel-hued stickers that are country specific, with all of the coffee information accessible and clear. The front of the bag also shows off our new “hands” button logo, which was developed by True Hand as well, and has become an important part of our identity and marketing already.

As a roaster, we’ve tried to always keep the focus on the coffees we buy and roast, so it was important to us that we had our producers front and center on the bag. The new stickers are a nice visual cue for the customers, and help them identify coffees on the shelf easily and efficiently.

What coffee information do you share on the package?