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Steel City Coffee Co.

A Pittsburgh-rooted coffee brand needed an identity as bold and industrial as the city it calls home — built to scale from a paper cup to a shipping container.

SERVICES

Brand Development

TIMELINE

3 Weeks

YEAR

2024

THE CHALLENGE

A city with character, and brand that needed to match it.

Steel City Coffee Co. came to us with a name full of personality and a product they were proud of — but no visual identity to back it up. They needed a brand that felt authentically Pittsburgh: industrial, bold, unpretentious. And it needed to work everywhere, from a to-go cup to a 40-foot shipping container.

The challenge was building something with real typographic weight and confidence without falling into generic “craft coffee” clichés.

APPROACH & EXECUTION

We led with a grid-based, all-caps wordmark that references industrial signage and structural steel — the visual language of Pittsburgh itself. The four-box lockup creates instant recognition at any size, and the yellow accent ties back to the city’s identity without screaming it.

SCOPE OF WORK

Versatile logo system
Color palette & type system
Product mock ups
Comprehensive style guide for future reference.

DELIVERABLES

A complete system.
Ready to deploy.

Every deliverable was built to work independently and together. The mark is just as strong on a coffee can as it is on a shipping container.

01 Logo System

Primary, reverse, and yellow rule variants — all delivered as vector files ready for any use case.

02 Packaging Design

Three bag colorways (yellow, white, black) with a modular label system that works across any SKU.

03 Brand guidelines

Color, type, logo usage, and do/don’t rules — everything the team needs to stay consistent.

TIMELINE

Three weeks,
start to finish.

Brand work moves fast when the brief is clear. Here’s exactly how this project went from discovery to full delivery in 21 days.

WK 1

Discovery & Direction.

Kickoff call to understand the brand’s vision, competitive landscape, and how the identity needed to perform — cups, bags, signage, and beyond. Moodboard and direction approved before any design work began.

WK 2

Brand Development.

Three concepts were presented. The grid-based word-mark was an immediate standout. One round of refinement — weight adjustments, spacing, and the yellow rule addition — then final approval.

WK 3

Packaging & Collateral.

Three bag colorways designed and approved. Mockups produced across cup, can, bottle, signage, and apparel. Brand guidelines document finalized and full asset handoff completed.

IN THE REAL WORLD

A mark that holds at every scale.

The four-box lockup was designed from day one to work at any size — from a tiny apparel embroidery to a full shipping container wrap. That flexibility is built into the structure of the mark itself.

To-go packaging
Storage container
Signage
Retail packaging system

RESULTS

A brand as tough as the city it's from.

Delivered in three weeks, fully owned by the client, and ready for anything from retail shelves to a 40-foot container wrap.

3 Weeks

From the first call to final deliverable. Working together to develop what they needed.

Full Brand Kit

Comprehensive brand identity package, collateral development and full support from kickoff to launch.

Complete Ownership

Steel City Coffee Co. owns everything, and has a life-long partner along the way.