Ride & Roast
Visual Identity
& Packaging
What do bikes and coffee have in common? I had no idea until I met the Toma family, who were opening a coffee roastery inside the space where they already ran a bicycle repair shop. New to Romania, but with plenty of heart behind it. A small local business bringing something fresh to the community.
With cycling and roasting at the core, the name came naturally: Ride & Roast.
The Brief
They came to me with a handful of AI-generated logo concepts, generic and without much storytelling. Good enough to get started, but too thin for a business this interesting. No previous brand to audit or reframe, so the process started with research: into coffee culture, bicycle culture, and what these two worlds actually share.
BEFIT IDENTITY DESIGN
A full identity ready for 100+ locations
Visual Identity
Logo, Colour Palette, Type
Packaging Design
Brand Illustration Style, Label, Print Ready
The logo concept came from a simple observation: coffee keeps you moving, and so does a bicycle. Coffee beans as bicycle wheels. Not complicated, but it works, and when something works, it's the right idea.
THE LOGO TYPE
The type is a thick, clean sans-serif, unaltered. The colour is warm orange, chosen to contrast the turquoise interior of the space. The combo mark also works as a badge, which opened up uses like stickers applied to repaired bikes or prints on coffee mugs.
Packaging
The roasted coffee is sold to take home, so it needed a label. A sticker applied to a simple white paper bag, carrying the roast date, tasting notes, farm origin, washing process, and altitude. Illustrated with bicycle close-ups intertwined with coffee plants, keeping the two worlds connected.
The label system is intentionally flexible: consistent in style, open in colour, ready for limited editions, collaborations, or special releases.
Outcome
The identity is not a loud one. It's a reliable piece of design built to support a family business, not decorate it. Brands like this live through use: on bags, on bikes, on walls, in the hands of the people who made them.
