Koub, Arabic for ‘cup,’ is a conceptual UAE-based café, evolving beyond contained beverages, aiming to expand into a vibrant community hub, where diverse ‘human’ interactions fuel boundless creativity.
Upon meeting with the client, it was evident through the provided specific visual references that a highly-collaborative approach between both the team and the clients’ side is bound. During the initial discussions, we refined the subconscious goal that the brand was aiming to become, as well as the expansion it was aiming to achieve. With that, the concept of Koub becoming an ever-growing space was defined and ready for implementation.
Understanding more about the initial growing-point of Koub’s audience, we began conceptualizing its base design by delving into a fusion of Arabic and Japanese typographic elements; where I conducted a visual analysis that explored uncharted creative territories. It revealed invisible connections between both the Katakana characters and Arabic scripture, specifically in the word ‘Koub’ itself, which I crafted its logo by intertwining the flair of Japanese typography lines onto the base of the brand name’s Arabic typography structure; resulting in an enigmatic, and curious symbol for both language’s readers.
The typography experiments paved the way for further understanding the brand audience, as well as aid into continuing the rest of its assets. Opting for a minimal presentation of the raw typography itself with no distractions to-be present in alternative variations, the logo enforced its own high-impact presence through mere graphic lines, which I curated a matching-in-impact vibrant color palette—Blue, White, and Orange—complementing the bold nature of the brand’s identity overall.
Expanding on the curated language of the fused typography, simplicity emerged as the consensus; as we opted for a technically-minimal yet visually-impactful look for character illustrations that reimagine the audience of Koub as highly cartoon-like, abstract, and free figures in separated scenarios within a shared context. That is done through intricately-imperfect lines expressing a play on scales, expressions, and interactions, while echoing the hand-drawn feel of the typography’s base lines in the Koub logo.
Prior to meeting with the client, the brand name—Koub—conveyed an idea of an open area of play; I imagined the ‘Koub’ to be empty, and not necessarily to-be filled with beverages, but instead with created ideologies. The theoretical cup in this context is the café’s goals of expansion through human-constructed communities of conversation-starters, gatherings, chatters, etc., in its community. Utilizing the highly vibrant orange color, specifically, from the curated palette, markings are set across the majority of the designed products, influenced by the green screen markings in production studios; a space that symbolizes creative creation and expression, matching Koub’s goals for its expansive identity and audience, all drawn atop its shared sheet. This is evident in application in the debut lineup of the ‘beaver’ menu items, where its illustrations seamlessly merge into the base brand character illustrations; regardless of the entity’s characterized figure.
In every stroke angle, color choice, and elements composition, Koub’s brand essence resounds—a vibrant playground with an inviting open canvas to partake in the pouring of its interactions, engagements, and connectivity, and the spilling of its creativity, vibrancy, and comicality.
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