Building your Cozy Coffee Shop Aesthetic with Small Business Branding

Form an illustrator/ brand designer 

When most people think about small business branding they don't always think of illustration design they picture logos, color palettes and typography, and that’s part of it. But in reality branding can go much deeper than that, it’s conveying your mission to your customers and also creating the tailored environment you want them to enjoy and illustration design is often the way to do that. This extends to your space too, not just your logo and advertising. And I think this is especially important when it comes to a business like a cafe or coffee shop where part of the cool is to build a cozy space people will want to stay in.

I’m guessing when you think of a cozy coffee shop ‘vibe’ a couple of things come to mind, lots of soft warm lights, big windows, nice work spaces and maybe a couch or two for friends to relax on. And of course plants. I’ve seen coffee shop after coffee shop try to base their entire indoor aesthetic on plants, but rarely works for one big reason. Everyone does it, almost any coffee shop or cafe you walk into will have at least a few prominent plants, including every other coffee shop in your area.

If you really want to make plants your thing you have to overboard with it, they have to be everywhere! I’ve seen this work really well, it does make for a nice environment. There’s one coffee shop near me called Grow that does this to great effect, but they built selling plants into their business model along with the drinks. Going overboard with plants is difficult because at that point maintaining them is more or less a part time job and between setting up your business, maintaining a good staff and making the coffee it probably feels like you have multiple full time jobs already.   

But that’s no reason to give up on building the cozy coffee shop aesthetic you want and that aesthetic includes plants. So I’m proposing what might seem like a novel solution: murals. Maybe this seems strange, but there’s a time honored tradition of bringing the outside inside in art. You’ll find semi-realistic murals of beautiful outdoor landscapes/ gardens painted on walls in Pompeii, especially if the house didn’t have a courtyard where they could put a real garden. There was an entire genre of still life painting in the 17th century dedicated to elaborate plant still lives for people who wanted more plants and flowers in their home than can be reasonably maintained. And I see this in modern cafes too! My favorite is Cafe Origine in Canada, which is covered in uniquely beautiful floral murals on nearly every wall. It’s worked so well for them that I’ve seen them get quite a bit of free advertising on social media out of it. And it’s just a super beautiful space! 

So what could this look like for you? I mocked up some of my illustrations on the blank wall of one of my favorite local coffee shops so you can see the difference. If you’ve got plants painted on the wall then you really only need a few real ones to build that plant/ cozy coffee shop dream!

If you want more examples of how much a mural can help your small business or cafe there’s a great article here: https://kreafolk.com/blogs/inspirations/mural-art-coffee-shop

And you can check out my process for small business branding, including mural work here:https://www.kamillaillustration.com/small-business-branding

If you'd like to see what this might look like I'd love to talk!

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