Arizona Coffee

A company in New York called R.BIRD has produced a series of reports on Patterns in package design (especially as it relates to specific industries like coffee, energy drinks, juice, etc.).

The one about coffee is very good. I highly recommend it. It shows how certain colors used in coffee packaging communicate certain things, the imagery and overall graphic style. Go here and grab the PDF.

Interesting tidbits:

• Premium coffees come in bags
• Value coffees come in cans, vacuum packed bricks
• Darker colors on packaging means darker the roast
• Decaf is green
• Premium coffees are more likely to have rich graphics, fancy illustrations
• Value (inexpensive) coffees are more likely to have simple graphics, solid (flat) colors
• Visual depictions of the grower (think of the Columbia guy) or the location the beans are grown in