HIGHLANDS COFFEE VIETNAM
Conceptual Rebranding
WHAT I DID
Creative Direction
Rebranding
Internal audit
Consumer research
SOFTWARE
Photoshop
Illustrator
After Effects
InDesign
Highlands Coffee is one of the most famous Vietnamese coffee brands, taking pride in their products which are born and bred in Vietnam with an over-a-decade legacy of the establishment.
As the brand continues to thrive and determine its value to the market in the new era, I want to take the challenge of creating a conceptual rebranding project to understand deeply their story as well as to expand it beyond the S-line territory and reach to friends around the globe.
Vietnamese born and bred coffee
"As a girl living far away from her country, wanting to celebrate the significant Vietnamese coffee culture with international fellows,
how else might I create a new brand identity of Highlands Coffee delivering more clearly the combination of Vietnamese tradition and modernity under the diverse perspectives of young adults?”
Based on this statement, the four installments are created to bring the audiences on the journey of uncovering the new brand identity of Highlands Coffee Vietnam. The journey begins with finding directions to reach the new identity through the first installment - "Brand blueprint". Once knowing and following the way, audiences get to meet the new identity through the "Design proposal", then they would get a chance to dive into the visualization of that new identity on account of the "Brand mockup". Lastly, with the final installment - "Graphic elements", the journey is enclosed with the hope to share the brand's values with friends all over the world.
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The story behind this new brand identity is written as the next chapter of the existing one. If the current logo is a reflection of mountains, river, and land, a complete picture of where the coffee bean is born and bred; this new design continues that story when moving from the motherland to the next home - the city, where tradition meets modernity, “us” (coffee and we) meet each other.
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In order to bring that composition of tradition and modernity into visual language, it requires a collaboration of style, form, shapes, colors, and typography. Taken inspiration from the patterns of the minor ethnic's traditional customs, images of highlands and cities connected through the rivers flowing across Vietnam are recreated under the form of abstract lines and shapes. With a touch-up of different shades of warm brown representing the variations of coffee's colors and its place of origin, the logo brings the contemporary pixels together, harmonizing the tradition and modernity.
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Additionally, the secondary palette consisting of red, blue, yellow, and green are extracted from distinctive traits of Vietnam’s four popular regions including the powerful capital city - Ha Noi, the energetic and modern - Ho Chi Minh City, the quiet ancient town - Hoi An, and the peaceful yet magnificent natural sight - Ha Long Bay.
Presented in the form of letter stamps, the supporting graphic elements are hoped to deliver the brand’s story and connect with friends around the world through each coffee package, each merchandise, and every taste of Vietnam’s signatures consisting of Phin Coffee, Tea, Freeze, and Banh Mi.
Applying my knowledge and experience in the UX design process, together with technical skills in graphic design, I started with research on the current brand’s identity and its customers in order to understand the context, identify the problems and define my vision for the solution. Due to the limitation of time and priorities, I could not conduct interviews with customers and employees as I initially intended to. However, I was still able to get insights about the customers to support my research through an online survey using Google Forms.
Moving forward, I developed the concept with a design proposal consisting of moodboard, visual style, color scheme and typography. Finally, turning those conceptual ideas into visual prototypes through multiple sketches on paper and digital tools including Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects.
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