Kapihan Coffee Roasters by Plus63

Coffee culture in the Philippines is on the rise, with an increasing number of people becoming more educated about the taste of coffee, cafes sprouting up left and right, and, of course, the emergence of meme culture highlighting our penchant for enjoying coffee even on scorching summer days.

That love for coffee can also be personal and can create intimate stories that we want to share later on. This is what Kapihan Coffee Roasters offers, sharing coffee and pastry stories in London but with roots from the Philippines.

Renowned communication design studio Plus63 Design Co took on the challenge of crafting a story of Kapihan Coffee Roasters. The design team for this project is consisted by Dan Matutina as Creative Director, Joanna Malinis as Graphic Designer, and Craig Halili as Illustrator.

From Plus63:
Kapihan is a proudly Filipino coffee shop in the UK. It’s a family-run business founded by siblings who grew up on stories of their grandfather Lolo Ruperto’s morning ritual: a bite of pandesal dunked in kapeng barako. By combining traditional Filipino flavours with modern coffee and pastry-making techniques, Kapihan playfully positions itself as D’ Original House of Kape’t Tinapay in their little corner in Battersea, London.

Logo
 
Like its approach to coffee and pastries, Kapihan’s identity is a meeting of old and new. The brand logo, for instance, is a digital interpretation of the natural geometric forms in traditional woven works. The result is a modern identity connected to a deeply Filipino aesthetic.

Kapihan’s original branding was centered on images of rural Filipino life, particularly the bahay kubo as a staple of pastoral scenes in the Philippines. The new identity features a version of the logo enclosed in an outline of a bahay kubo as a nod to the brand’s beginnings.
 
A secondary logo bears the words “Walang matigas na tinapay sa mainit na kape”, a humorous expression insisting that nothing can’t be remedied by a hot cup of coffee.

llustrations

Kapihan’s identity extends to images of Filipino culture and history—occasionally mixed with scenes of life in Battersea, London. These digitally-drawn illustrations and accents appear all over the brand’s assets, such as in cup sleeves, coffee pouches, and the shop’s signage.

An important role of these icons is to create a story for each of Kapihan’s blends, most of which are sourced from coffee farms in the Philippines and are thus infused with truly local flavours.

Typeface

Kapihan’s custom typeface is called Kwadra Display, a name borrowed from the Filipino word kwadrado, or square. It builds upon the identity’s adaptation of traditional woven designs using letterforms characterized by occasional notches. Kwadra is chiefly used in the wordmark but also appears consistently in the brand’s packaging design.

This brand identity surely has made Lolo Ruperto proud, as he sips his kapeng barako and enjoys his warm pandesal. This Kapihan proudly brings the flavors of 7,000 islands across the seas.

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Brand Identity by Plus63 Design Co.
Creative Director: Dan Matutina
Graphic Designer, Custom Typeface: Jo Malinis
Illustrator: Craig Halili

Photos: Matt Hickman, Josh Bonifacio
Copy: Miguel De Dios
Animation: Janina Malinis