Canadian Coffee Roaster Lord & Lady Gets a Fresh Rebrand

Inspired by international stamps, travel signs, fruit stickers and nostalgic graphics, Cossette’s Design team created a new brand identity for the Canadian coffee roaster and wholesaler Lord & Lady. The new colourful identity gives a nod to 'origin' and the company’s love for experimentation with regional coffee blends.

“When we first came up with this idea, we didn’t know about the pandemic. And despite the challenges we knew lay ahead, we decided to keep moving forward,” says Kristen O’Coin, managing director of Lord & Lady Coffee. “We pivoted to home brewing but realized that a lot of consumers aren’t used to making their own coffee, and they found all of the steps and gadgets intimidating. So we decided to start an online learning academy alongside our coffee subscriptions and specialty gear so people can learn more about home brewing in a way that’s fun and easy to follow. It’s important for people to start where they are!”

Run by a tight knit team of six, each of the colourful stickers on Lord & Lady’s coffee bags are hand placed by the team’s friends and family (including O’Coin’s 91-year-old grandmother!), making each one completely one-of-a-kind, and giving the brand an easy and unique way of standing out on home shelves and the shelves of their stockists across the country. The fun and vibrant brand identity is also reflective of the team’s attitude toward their craft: fun and playful without being serious or stringent in their pursuit for great coffee.

“In every meeting—from our initial briefing to when we presented our final designs—the Lord & Lady team’s energy and excitement about great coffee was contagious. The thing that stuck with the design team the most were the origin stories behind each blend. Every bean has its own story and we wanted to carry that into our design,” says Luis Coderque, head of design at Cossette. “Instead of the standard brown craft or neutral packaging, we went with big, bold colours to reflect that energy, and a sticker system—similar to the ones you find on fruit—to tell the story of each blend. The built-in flexibility of the design system also means the brand identity can easily be applied to other things like business cards and the merch they sell on their website.”