Ping Ping
The owner approached us willing to give birth
to a story rather than a mere coffee brand.
He wanted us to convey the feelings behind his motivations and to create a soul for his brand that reflected the spirit of Camden Town as well.
Ping Ping is like a business utopia, an underdog and secretive brand which relies on (and it’s part of) a community, to help the growth of the community itself: and this community is Camden Town.
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Camden has always been a melting pot of different cultures and its Art has always mirrored this melting and clashing throughout many decades and waves: pop, punk, trippy, romantic dandy, rave, gothic just to list some.
In approaching the design and this very brand we wanted to keep that spirit of convergence, blending a font blessed with romantic and art deco volumes with the aggressive grids and colour palettes of a counterculture music label.
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As per the concept behind the logo (see “branding execution”) we knew we wanted a lot of movement so that the conventional approach of coffee beans peacefully seating in a bowl was immediately discarded.
We envisioned from the very beginning this idea of coffee beans raining down and interacting with some hard surface, but we wanted to give a deeper meaning to this action.
That is the why we thought about some sorting mechanism selecting only the best coffee beans thanks to an opening on the side and with the function to suggest the grinding action trough rotation.
If originally the scene was conceived with many copies of these circular containers in different shapes and sizes, we then opted for a more diverse display introducing gears, to better convey the sense of a transfer of energy.
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Furthermore, the transparent gears are designed after the gears of a bicycle, to better connect the brand to the cycling community that is so dear to the brand.
Acid greens with black, white and grey achieving
a contrast enhanced by pairing thin and bold fonts, lines, symbols, doodles and stickers.
Where the graphics witness the artistic vibes of the brand, the pictures needed to express its modernity and irony. We have thus plastic balls instead of coffee beans and destructured pictures that refer to the uncertainty which gave birth to this brand. But to outline Ping Ping soul as the owner wanted us to we still needed a key concept.
That’s why “grind” is such an important word for the brand, as it means the satisfying action to make your own coffee true before your eyes as well as the truth about life, with its cold days of hard work, when coffee is a moment of break, gathering, friendship and relax.
It’s a word that is an invitation to be strong and brave at facing everyday challenges, with that new aim that is not anymore just about feeling productive but about being surrounded by friends you can help and who can help you.
The logotype tell us about the name of the brand, Ping Ping, while location and purpose are defined within the ellipse underneath.
The wavy graphic element is not just an embellishment: it’s a graphic representation of a wave of energy, an heart beat, a path from “A to B” that isn’t just geographic.
It follows the bends and turns of our existence, and in this very moment the shift from a self-centered life to the realisation of the importance to rely on a community.
That doesn’t mean that coffee brings enlightment, but that the birth of this brands starts from this new awareness.
