Groupwork is an independent speciality roaster based in Newcastle (Northern Ireland). The owners found a passion for speciality coffee whilst operating their Railway Street Cafe before launching their roasting project in 2020. With the desire to build open access to speciality coffee, Groupwork is a resource of coffee expertise and experience where coffee meets quality, honesty and togetherness.

Through a brand strategy process, Angel & Anchor discovered that the roasters are the humanistic coffee people we’ve all been looking for. These are the down-to-earth brothers next door who care about the micro-details of a good brew without losing sight of the people who drink it. They are ‘if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well types’ with a side of stubborn optimism. The strategy process also informed a rename, moving away from the original ‘Sleeper’ name. Their new identifier, ‘Groupwork’, was born from their practical and community-focused nature.

Groupwork manifested as a warm-hearted hand-illustrated brand with a refined but friendly logotype. The logotype acts as the core logo, created from Roc Grotesk, balancing simplicity with character in a mix of rounded forms and sharp narrowings. A hand-drawn monogram logo in the shape of a coffee cup bridges the gap between the logotype and the charming character illustrations for smaller, more personalised moments. An alternative logo mark in the style of the core illustrations with two hands reaching for one another in a loop embodies the looping nature of connection and support that Groupwork bring to their approach to the speciality community. A pairing body copy in the style of Bookmania portrays familiarity and the warmth you’d find in a slow read.

Groupwork’s coffee bags ooze a friendly quality lent by the illustration style. Discovery at the brand strategy level found that Groupwork’s people-driven internal compass pointed to a natural subject matter for the brand’s identity. Illustrations of people in simple everyday moments, brewing or enjoying coffee, bring a relatable reflection of life to the coffee bags. The illustrations nod to Groupwork’s ethos of sincerely welcoming all kinds of coffee drinkers and embracing the everyday joy in coffee. Textured, hand-drawn illustrations by Chandler Breeze resemble marker ink with their black colour and placement on the mint-white bag.

The humble coffee cup is championed throughout the brand as the hero of coffee. Playfully sitting on each side of the bag are coffee cup vignettes depicting the alter-egos of a takeaway coffee cup. From plant pot, pyramid tower and string telephone, these cheerful extensions of the core character illustrations draw focus to the cup as the stage where everything happens. Highlighting a cup of coffee as a time for people to live in the moment and enjoy the simple things is a theme throughout illustrations and brand language.

‘Better Shared’ is a core Groupwork mantra, encouraging people to find the best together, with coffee being a good excuse to ‘Make Good Moments’ alone or with others. Enjoying quality is an open invitation with ‘Better Coffee Belongs to Everyone.’ Approaching the speciality industry with openness and inclusivity, Groupwork applies simplicity to their pursuit of quality, echoed in the phrases’ Speciality Simplified’ and ‘Bits of Balance.’

Groupwork’s identity brings a relatable charm to speciality coffee. Friendly coffee bags and down-to-earth messaging creates an open invitation to experience dependable expertise where coffee meets quality, honesty and togetherness.