Rosetta Roastery

Designed in collaboration with Adam Hill

Rosetta is a multi award winning coffee roastery with 2 brick and mortar cafe locations in Cape Town, South Africa. They specialise in sourcing and micro-batch roasting speciality grade, single origin coffees from Africa, Central & South America and Asia. Being on the forefront of local specialty coffee, their dedication, intellect and passion have extended well beyond their own brand and largely helped lay the foundation for a burgeoing speciality coffee culture in South Africa.

I have worked with them since their conception in 2010, along with fellow designer Adam Hill, to create a branding solution that has extended to packaging, printed materials, interior design direction and consulting. The lynchpin of the brand is the 'gem', a brandmark comprised of 3 shapes representing the 3 primary regions they source from. It has become both a simple and effective mnemonic for the brand as well as a subtle yet versatile branding concept.

As they do micro-batch roasting, and only do single origins, their product range changes regularly and as such the primary design challenge was around creating robust and adaptable solutions that could be easily altered client side as new batches arrived. The packaging is a single base design, with several stickers used to indicate region, name and descriptions, that make them easily distinguishable. Posters, menu systems and tasting cards were also created with the same adjustable template idea in mind, highlighting regions and flavour profiles to help customers better understand differences in coffees and identify the styles they prefer. The geometric tri-shape graphic language also enters into the spaces themselves in the form of seating, planters, lighting and furniture.

Identity Design | Creative Direction. Photography: Justin Groep or Jordan Metcalf unless indicated | Cover image: Bryan Banda