Clay & Bean Case Study — A Coffee Shop Branded by Hand

01 — Context

The place was built by hand, before it had a brand.

Clay & Bean started as a passion project. The people behind it also run Recraft, an interior crafts and refab construction company — I had designed Recraft's visual identity and direction earlier, and this project came to me through that collaboration. They didn't hire someone to fit out their coffee shop. They built it themselves: every wall panel hand-shaped in clay plaster, natural and partly reused materials throughout.

From the first conversation it was clear this wasn't a simple coffee shop. It runs in two directions at once: a place for the community, and something close to a showroom for the aesthetic of the clay panels themselves. What they asked of me, in essence, was to make it read the way it feels — a coffee shop with soul.

Clay & Bean interior — walls of hand-shaped clay plaster panels in earthy tones, warm lighting and plants

The interior, built in-house

Every panel hand-shaped in clay plaster by the team — the material the whole brand starts from.

02 — The Challenge

Make the soul visible from the street.

A place like this can't carry a generic coffee brand. Cold minimalism would contradict the hand-shaped walls; a loud, trendy identity would drown them out. The brand had to hold the same qualities as the space: craft, warmth, and restraint.

And it had to say — without words — that everyone is welcome. The neighbourhood around the shop is exactly that mix: people arriving by bike, people with dogs, people in a hurry grabbing a coffee and leaving. The identity needed to put those people in the brand, and it needed to work hard on one particular surface: the shop's own windows.

03 — The Strategy

Build it from the same materials as the room.

Authentic, sustainable, community-driven.

The strategy had two halves. The logo takes the craft route: it's drawn from the actual tools and materials that built the place, combined with a minimal construction so it stays quiet and confident. The community takes the illustrated route: a cast of line-drawn characters — the regulars, essentially — carrying the welcome across every surface the brand touches.

The window illustrations were the key move. The shop sits on a busy corner, and the glass was the perfect opportunity to communicate the intention of the place: you see the biker, the dog, the skater, someone rushing off with a cup — and you understand who this place is for before you've read a word.

The concept

A plastering trowel placed as an open door; a shape that reads as a coffee bean or an open cup; a dot that seals the values.

04 — The Work

Craft on one side, community on the other.

A trowel that reads as an open door.

The first form in the logo is the vertical plastering trowel used to work clay plaster — the tool that literally shaped the walls. It's placed so it also reads as an open door, welcoming people in. Next to it sits a negative-space form somewhere between a coffee bean and a handle-less cup, the kind you hold with both hands. The solid dot at the end works like a cosign under the shop's values: sustainability, quality, community. Craft in the content, minimal in the construction — the two halves of the place, in one mark.

Clay & Bean business card on red clay soil — illustration of a person holding clay panels, Woodford Green address, and on the back: nine symbols equal one cup

The card, with a loyalty scheme built in

On the back, the clay-panel grid doubles as a stamp card: 9 × the symbol = a cup.

Pressed into the wall itself

The wordmark embossed straight into a clay panel — the brand and the material are the same thing.

Illustrations that put the neighbourhood in the brand.

The illustration system is a cast of characters drawn from the street outside: the person on the bike, the dog, the rollerskater, the one hurrying off with a takeaway cup. One continuous line, no colour, no noise — so they sit comfortably on the clay tones without competing. They run across the window vinyls, the wrapping paper, the menus and the merchandise, and they all say the same thing: whoever you are, whatever context you arrive in, you're welcome here.

Clay & Bean window vinyls photographed on the real shop — line illustrations of a cyclist, a dog and a rollerskater around the symbol

On the glass, for real

Not a mockup — the window illustrations installed on the shop, with the neighbourhood reflected in them.

Clay & Bean window illustration — a person in an armchair holding a cup, drawn in one continuous white line on the shop glass

The regulars, drawn in

Each window holds a scene — a cup, a chair, a wall of clay bricks being laid.

Clay & Bean shop front in Woodford Green — signage above the door, awning, and window illustrations across the full glass frontage

The whole frontage

Sign, awning, windows — the identity as you meet it from the pavement.

Colours from the walls, type that doesn't shout.

The palette is named after what's physically in the room: Limewash Cream, Dune Sand, Verdant Earth, Mocha Bark, Roasted Clay, Sage Matcha. With the symbol and the illustrations carrying the expression, the typography didn't need to shout — it needed personality and character at a lower volume. Funnel Sans does that: a functional sans-serif with both square and circular shapes in its letterforms, which is exactly the balance the logo strikes too. The system runs through menus, cups, bags, aprons and signage without ever feeling branded-at-you.

Clay & Bean colour palette — Limewash Cream, Dune Sand, Verdant Earth, Mocha Bark, Celadon Mist, Roasted Clay, Chalk Mist and Sage Matcha

Colours with an address

Every tone in the palette exists somewhere in the shop's materials.

Funnel Sans

Functional, personal, square and circular at once — like the mark it sits next to.

Clay & Bean illuminated menu board installed in the shop, with the symbol glowing below it, next to the clay panel interior

The menu, lit

The illuminated menu board in place — Funnel Sans doing its quiet job above the counter.

05 — The Results

Open, busy, and reviewed like people mean it.

A full identity delivered for opening day: logo, illustration system, illuminated menu board, street signage, window vinyls, business cards with a built-in loyalty scheme, packaging and merchandise

The wordmark embossed directly into the shop's clay panels — brand and building sharing the same material

Within a few months of opening: more than 150 five-star Google reviews — rare in a business where you face people all day, every day

The project was featured twice by Behance's curated galleries — Branding and InDesign

What shows in those reviews is the thing the brief asked for from the start: people can tell the place was made with soul — down to the ceramic cups in natural clay, made by by.noo.ceramics. David's own words, after the work: "She took the time to understand our vision, values and personality, and transformed them into a visual identity that tells our story."

A blueberry pastry and a Clay & Bean branded ceramic cup on a wooden board at the shop window, looking out onto the green

In use, by the window

Ceramic cups in natural clay by by.noo.ceramics, carrying the wordmark — photographed in the shop, not in a mockup.

Where coffee meets clay and dogs are welcome™