Challenge:
Octane was part of a big movement – the Third Wave of Coffee. For the non-coffee nerds, here’s a brief synopsis of what's going on with the coffee industry:

• The First Wave: The lowest quality and is known as commodity coffee. Think Folgers, Maxwell House, Green Mountain Coffee, and other brands that don’t have a strong focus on quality or sourcing transparency.
• The Second Wave: Think Starbucks and Caribou Coffee–brands that revolutionized cafe culture in the United States. These roasters and cafes brought coffee to life in a new way in the late 1900’s by introducing coffee lovers to a wider variety of coffee experiences.
• The Third Wave: As more and more consumers realized that there was more to coffee than bitterness and ashy flavors, a coffee renaissance emerged that now includes a single origin of beans, full supply-chain transparency and experimental latte-based art forms

The brief was to help the startup create a brand that could leverage the third wave movement to build equity but also remain flexible to enable scale.   

Solution:
Like most startups, the founder had the vision and passion of an Elon Musk but the budget of a seed-stage startup. Our fixed yet flexible approach was used to not only help establish the Octane brand but actually inspire everything they did from designing their retail experience to attracting new partners.

The brand identity system was pivotal in helping the brand scale and eventually be acquired.

Brand system

One of the elements of the branding system that helped make the brand unforgettable was its custom font called Black Sabbath. The font was designed to work across the brand experience to create both a familiar yet surprising brand identity. The font would go on to become iconic in its own right, used by designers around the world and featured in publications including GQ and The New York Times.