Our Design Agency (ODA) has created the first brand color toolkit for Costa Coffee to assist with embedding consistency across international markets as it enters its next phase of growth.
As a global brand, Costa Coffee currently serves 31 markets including China, UAE and the UK. As the brand continues to enjoy growth, there was a clear requirement to ensure that global partners were provided with a consistent reproduction of the brand's iconic Costa Coffee Red in order for them to produce and deliver on-brand assets in-market.
"For Costa Coffee to truly own its brand colour, it must be accurately reproduced across all different touchpoints," said Grant Willis, Creative Director at ODA. "Until now, there have been fluctuations across its estate, so there was a clear opportunity to work in partnership to address this and create a toolkit to ensure consistency."
ODA's brief was to create the definitive Costa Coffee Red color, then work with the brand's partners to ensure it could be reproduced across each of the different substrates within a store, from exterior signage to packaging. "Even though the book is intended for external suppliers, we set out to create something with real Costa Coffee personality," Willis added. "There are references to paint pots and brushes throughout. We also used a coffee stirrer in the paint pot as a visual pun to underline the importance of this colour to Costa Coffee."
The book has been designed with printers and suppliers in mind. Each substrate has been included as either a page or a tile, which can be removed from the book and matched on-press to ensure the most accurate reproduction. Each book also contains two swatch books - one on coated paper and the other uncoated - so printers can retain a physical sample for future reference.
