Specialty
Freshly roasted, 100% Arabica blends with caramel, chocolate and fruity notes.
All workCase study 12 of 13
HUM
A premium coffee brand with a grin - specialty, instant and filter coffee, wrapped in colour and one very excited U.
The brief
Premium coffee, minus the pretence.
HUM roasts specialty Arabica blends, flavoured instant coffee and South Indian filter coffee - and wanted to sell all three to a new generation of coffee drinkers.
We started with the customer: people who take their coffee seriously but not themselves. From that we derived HUM's mission and built a communication system that could talk to them easily - on a pouch, a cup or a magazine page.
Stressed, blessed and coffee obsessed.
The result is premium in craft and playful in tone: rich roast colours, bright fruit-and-spice accents, and a wordmark that looks like it just had its first sip.
01 · The mark
The U that couldn't contain itself.
- Tall, hand-cut lettersH and M lean slightly, like they're humming along.
- A drop of coffeeThe o falls below the line and lands under the U.
- Excitement, built inTogether the U and o read as an exclamation mark - the feeling of the first sip - and become the brand's mark.
02 · Identity system
Roast, spice and a little fruit.
Colours handpicked to add fun and playfulness: a deep roast, a bold orange and an olive, each with a softer shade. Mouse Memoirs leads; Rockwell adds the craft.
Roast#44272C
Orange#F86000
Olive#8B983E
Mauve#76565B
Peach#F29C61
Lime#D5DA66
03 · The range
One system, every way you brew.
Pouch mockups drawn for this case study in the HUM packaging system, using product names from humbrands.com.
Three rituals
Pour-over, spoon or steel filter.
Every HUM customer brews differently, so the brand meets them where they are - each format gets its own ritual and its own colour.
Instant
Flavoured instant coffee - hazelnut, butterscotch, chocolate - in a spoon.
Filter
South Indian filter coffee and decoction, blended with chicory the traditional way.
04 · Packaging
Loud pattern up top, quiet facts below.
Each pouch splits in two: a pattern you can spot across the shop, and a calm panel for origin, roast and notes.
05 · Communication
A brand that talks like its customers.
Editorial, lifestyle and merch - written in their voice, wrapped in the pattern.
Brand guidelines
The whole system, page by page.
Logo, mark, colour, type, pattern and packaging. Drag or click to turn pages, or use the ← → keys.
The outcome
Coffee people get excited about.
HUM launched with a clear mission, a mark people grin at, and a packaging system that stretches from specialty beans to filter decoction without losing its voice.
Designed with Burri Keerthi.
- Customer insight, mission and brand strategy
- Wordmark, exclamation mark, colour and type
- U-and-o pattern and pouch packaging
- Editorial, lifestyle and merchandise communication
