Case Study: taro coffee bar

Project Overview

  • Problem Statement

    Taro coffee bar has a terrific logo, a beautiful coffee trailer, quality coffee, a unique angle using the purple taro root, a stellar location, and exceptional customer service. Still, it lacked a brand strategy and several branding elements that would help define it and successfully establish it in the marketplace.

  • taro coffee bar logo on the side of their coffee trailer

    Methods Utilized

    • user survey
    • user interviews
    • SWOT analysis
    • workshopping/brainstorming
    • affinity mapping
    • heuristics of competitors
    • stakeholder interviews
    • user research analysis
    • unique selling proposition
    • user personas
    • marketing profile
    • moodboards
    • prototyping
    • user research
    • accessibility analysis
    • style guide

  • Goals & Deliverables

    Goals
    • understand taro’s true customer
    • discover taro’s competitive advantage
    • define taro’s brand voice
    • create a beautiful, effective website
    • design a user-friendly menu board
    • build a library of stock images

    Deliverables
    • website
    • menu board
    • color palette
    • typography
    • style guide
    • marketing analysis
    • customer analysis
    • competitor analysis
    • brand stock images

The Website

Creating a welcoming vibe for our startup coffee truck in a bustling Southwest tourist hotspot.

SEO-optimized content for your website is not just an option, it's a necessity.

Leveraging customer feedback, and combining the brand’s colors with beautiful photography, allows a brand to shine.

A bonus 404 page utilizes taro’s friendly brand voice stoked with a little humor.

The Menu Board

Taro’s menu board is 3ft x 4.5ft and is mounted on the front of the coffee trailer. It needed to be legible from a distance of 6–10 ft.

Menu Board for taro coffee bar

Takeaways

  • Sometimes clients want to make choices not necessarily in their best interest. Learning how to direct them to decisions that best serve their brand can be a delicate business. I’m working on being more skilled at this!

  • Gathering assets is always a challenging part of projects. I’m learning how to make this a more fluid process for clients.

  • For this project, we bit off a lot for Phase I. Going forward, I am putting less on both the client and my plates so it feels less daunting for everyone.