Depo Coffee Roasting, is a roastery/café based in Istanbul, Turkey with three locations. Their first café was built out of an old storage basement near the end of 2017. Therefore uses the name “Depo” meaning basement storage in Turkish.

Back in late 2017 we had worked on Depo’s first identity system including a basic structure of packaging labels, creative artwork and a few other exciting collaterals. The initial launch of the brand followed black and white as primary colours and a simple design. As the roaster grew into two more locations and started to serve and deliver high quality roasted coffee all around Turkey and due to the the huge shift of consuming trends after the breakout in 2020 – a brand refresh became a clear must. It was time to sit down, and rethink about everything. This refresh had to solve a lot of problems – most importantly had to bring joy and pleasure to people who were stuck at home during lockdown. Social lives are almost taken away due to the unfortunate turn of events and the role of coffee in such a culture needed to rejuvenation.

After research and figuring out structural problems – we decided that it was time to launch a a fresh and more colourful, vibrant look for Depo’s new coffee line up. Our new direction was not only to become more vibrant – escaping the old dark and black style, but also was aiming to draw a connection between roasting levels and animals. So making it fun and new to the consumers. Each box would have it’s own little visual story.

Each roasting level would be represented by a spirit animal and the color would change accordingly. To take the project to the next level and build an even stronger contrast between each product we hired 6 highly-talented illustrators to work on each coffee package individually. We matched their styles with the roasting level too! This meant that the line up become stronger and had a second story to tell. The story of the illustrators.

Each illustrator would have their own packaging box and coffee type to show their illustrative style to the consumers. Each artist would illustrate the box with an animal that not only reflects their personality as a being, but also alludes to the characteristics of the coffee type assigned. 6 really talented illustrators, 6 spirit animals and 6 delicious coffee types! A project that we hope inspires many people!