Café Mañana is coffee product from Hunger Corp, a Puerto Rican nonprofit focused on Asset Based Community Development. The’ve been building homes, restoring schools and kick-starting small businesses for the past ten years.
100% of profits from this high quality, locally grown coffee go to fund Hunger’s community development projects in Puerto Rico.
In leading their creative and branding efforts, my challenge was communicating both the merits of the product itself and it’s social responsibility ties in a simple, break-through and engaging way.
All the following work was developed and executed by yours truly. I hope you like it!
Step 1
The Name
The team at Hunger tried many names in the initial planning stages. Hunger Coffee and Puente Dorado being some of the top contenders. They felt these options were either too tied to the main organization (in the former), or too divorced from it (in the latter). So I pitched the team a new name: MAÑANA.
Mañana in Spanish means tomorrow, morning and dawn.
The first connection is obvious, most people like to enjoy a great coffee in the morning. It’s the start of their day. It’s all opportunity and potential from there.
Hunger’s community development work isn’t building homes. It’s building hope. It’s building people back up. Mañana is a new dawn, a new day full of potential. A tomorrow full of hope -that’s what they’re selling.
Step 2
The Bag
We went through dozens and dozens of designs in our exploration phase, starting with the original name, Puente Dorado
Then moving to Hunger Coffee, with an intent to tie the product to the organization’s projects, going as far as creating illustrations based on their photography.
And finally landing on MAÑANA, exploring illustrations based on Hunger’s work and historic photographs of Dorado, PR. For the wordmark I wanted something that felt established and timeless, to bring a sense of trust to this new brand.
Our final design communicates the social responsibility Reason to Buy (RTB) in a quick and modern way, by showing a small community growing from a coffee bean.
My proposed tagline “Café Que Construye Comunidades” (Coffee that builds communities) hints at the organization’s work while also alluding to the social building aspect of the coffee drinking ritual.
The back of the bag offers more context about Hunger Corp and their work. The lower part consists of a real case-study about one of the people the organization served, next to an illustration of that hero, as Hunger call them.
The idea is to rotate in new stories over time, as Hunger’s impact grows. Their first SKU features Rafa Ocasio’s heartwarming story.
Step 3
The Brand
After finalizing the bag’s design, I started developing the brand’s visual identity. The first examples of that were these social media posts and carousels.
Step 4
The Merch
After finalizing the bag’s design, I started developing the brand’s visual identity. The first examples of that were these social media posts and carousels.
