The Good Stuff: September Edition
Tue 22 Sep 2026
Behind the Screens: A Topographic Story
For more than a decade, we’ve worked alongside Caffeine Limited, helping shape a brand that has grown alongside the business itself.
What started as a family-run coffee equipment supplier in Welwyn Garden City has grown into a national coffee partner, supplying and servicing commercial machines, training baristas and roasting its own speciality coffee.
With so many different sides to the business, our role has always been to create a clear visual thread that brings everything together.
Over the years, Justin, Karen and Joe have visited every region Caffeine sources its coffee from.
Those journeys became the starting point for this part of the brand.
We wanted to find a way of bringing the origins of the coffee into the identity, without relying on the usual imagery associated with coffee-growing regions.
The answer was in the landscape itself.
Every coffee-growing region has its own topographic character, so we took the real terrain of each place and redrew it, line by line, as a series of relief maps.
What started as a way of representing where the coffee comes from quickly became a visual language for the wider brand.
The contour lines now run across coffee bags, boxes, cups, signage, T-shirts and even beer mats – giving each touchpoint a connection back to the landscape behind the coffee.
One of our favourite applications is the series of T-shirts, each featuring a different coffee-growing region alongside its name and coordinates.
As Caffeine continues to grow its range, from wholesale coffee bags to retail blends, the topographic system gives everything a sense of place and a connection back to the wider Caffeine story.
It’s a simple idea, but one that carries a lot with it: every coffee starts somewhere.
Find out more about Caffeine Limited.
