Mixing a lovely and loud colorful expression, the Stockholm-based coffee farming project, Lykke Kaffegårdar (Lykke Coffee farms) balances out its packaging identity through bespoke type fused illustrations, images, and lots of colour.
The choice of using type to express the different coffee packaging was pre-meditated. One of Lykke’s Founders, Johan Damgaard, tells us the idea is to have a free space to express themselves without being obvious about the grains, dark colors, or a more minimalistic packaging – and what better way to be expressive other than creating your own typeface, right?
“Our focus was to find beautiful, happy, and warm expressions through design. All our products have unique and separate expressions, the only thing that keeps them together is the Lykke Logo – and maybe that ‘This must be a Lykke bag’ feeling”, he comments.
Johan also punctuates quite often how design is the very base to create a product craving accompanied by smart copywriting to actually capture the brand’s expression. “Except on content, typography is also design, so we add it everywhere”, he says.
“Take the ‘Oj’ bag as an example. It is like ‘oops’ in Swedish and sounds like ‘hello’ in Portuguese, so we of course colored in the Brazilian flag colors with green, yellow and blue”, explains Johan. The illustration was made by Andreas Samuelsson, who also draw the BamBam logo.
“It’s kind of his thing to use words with different meanings and create designs out of them. We did some illustrations in the same style, but as I said before, we didn’t want to stop there or connect our brand solely to these expressions. For the following product, we decided to go with a photo spray painted over it, and other types of illustrations. In a world full of cool and dark products it was also in our interest to create something joyful and happy.”, explains Johan.
Passion turned business
Behind all the great packing, the team counts on help from the Stockholm-based agency Open Studio. Lykke is a collective with a lot of people trying to make things happen. Besides working with small farmers from all over the world, the coffee place is run by a team of farmers, coffee roasters, and creative people that came together to combine all their knowledge and create a unique place.
“We planted a tree and set up farms in El Salvador, Panama, Peru, Brasil, and Uganda together with the farmers who are also partners in the roastery. One big happy family with the vision that nothing or no one should suffer for us to enjoy a cup of coffee.”
Though very passionate about coffee, their store offers way more: you will find posters, tea, brewing equipment, clothing, and more – and yes, they deliver worldwide! The Lykke Gardar team was kind enough to give our readers a little discount on the checkout bag with the code johansbuddy too!
We also got a little spoiler on what’s coming in hot for Lykke Gardar: the coffee packing will switch to recyclable aluminum cans – The Lykke Can. “Aluminium is one of the most sustainable materials, demanding low energy to be recycled – 75% of all aluminum ever produced is still being recycled all over the world.”
If you a coffee fan, it is also worth it to check their monthly box subscription for a little surprise coffee in your mailbox every now and then. Read more about Lykke on their website, and keep track of what’s new on their Instagram.
