APRICITY CAFE

Led end-to-end creative development for a new café concept

Apricity café is a project for an upcoming café in Toronto, Ontario. This brand establishes itself through elegance and minimalism. While the simplistic design can be utilized for a seamless transition from café to bar after dark.

PRODUCT TYPE

Full branding package, website

ROLE

Creative director, graphic designer, product designer

TOOLS

Adobe Fresco, Illustrator, Photoshop, Shopify web builder

TIMEFRAME

April 2025 - Present

Process overview:

1. Problem

2. Challenge

3. Results

4. Demo

Had to figure out a brand concept with zero direction

The problem:

My main tasks were to create a logo proposal, website, social media layout, and graphics for my client.

Given the scale of this project—and the fact that I was tackling it solo—the biggest hurdle was simply getting something down on the page. This meant asking a lot of questions and spending significant time consulting with my client to uncover what their vision for the brand was. (Foreshadowing: that vision ended up doing a complete 180.)

⭐ The first step in this task was to establish a logo and a color palette.

Project planning:

Above is a mood board I was able to create to organize my ideas for the cafe.

In order to get a better idea on the look and feel of the logo and the brand itself, I did a lot of research both online and at cafes in person. Given that this cafe would be in Toronto, I took a look at notable cafes as a reference to what worked out for them and what could work out for Apricity. Some cafes would include, Rooms, Gateau Ghost, Butter & Blue, and San Cafe.

I started out with sketching out different ideas for the logo design

First iteration:

During the consultation, my client wanted to use my illustration style for the brand to feel cute, warm, and have a mascot of a cat. Given that Apricity meant the warmth of the sun in the winter, they also wanted to include a sun in the logo as well.

As a result, my logo drafts in the first iteration were created with that idea in mind.

Logo process:

I began by sketching out initial ideas for both the text and the mascot logo. To better understand the emotional direction they envisioned for the brand, I shared my brainstorming sketches with the client. They gravitated toward the closed-eye cat illustrations, which gave me a clear starting point for refining the logo in the next phase.

Next, I developed several variations in the same visual style to explore which compositions worked best—particularly in terms of logo design and text placement.

The concept was slowly coming together. I experimented with text placement and color fills, but ultimately settled on the cat and sun as the core elements of the logo I planned to present.

This was the first logo iteration I fully developed and formally presented to the client. For the next two months, it stood as the direction we planned to move forward with—until a shift in the café’s development prompted a major change in course.

However the brand direction took an unexpected turn, requiring me to scrap the original concept and start over from scratch.

The challenge:

Decisions were made to scratch the brand concept of cute and warm to something more suitable for corporate events. While in addition to that, the preferred demographic shifted. For that reason, feedback was given in order to re-brand a new logo and concept for Apricity.

Such as:

Replacing the green color palette with a monochrome and beige palette
No need for the sun or the cat anymore
Keep the logo text cursive
Have the brand be modern, simple, and minimal

New logo sketches:

Final logo and graphics:

As the brand direction evolved toward a more minimalist aesthetic, I decided to remove the mascot from the primary logo design. Instead, I created a set of supporting graphics that could be used strategically across products and packaging.

In addition, while the original logo featured cursive typography, I transitioned to a cleaner, more refined script font to better capture the modern, minimal feel we were aiming for.

Final color palette:

As mentioned in the feedback, I swapped out the color palette from greens to more monochromatic and beige. I did however add an accent color to bring a bit of color and pop to the brand when necessary.

Results:

Given all the hurdles that it took to get to this point, I would say that the logo and final design have definitely matched my clients vision for the cafe. I was able to learn a lot by having to quickly adapt and create a concept completely different than the previous. This experience allowed me to really separate myself from the design itself and work efficiently to ensure that my clients vision comes to light.

I would say that this was my first time working on a huge project of this scale on my own. In the beginning I was 100% overwhelmed by the amount of brain fogs I’d reach when brainstorming just didn’t cut it. I’d have to take a couple breaks to really look at my designs with a fresh pair of eyes and reach out to many of my peers for feedback. With that, my online resources were also my best friend in completely this project.

That being said, below are some mock-up’s I created for the cups, signs, business cards, and social media. In addition, the link to the full proposal is attached below along with a video demo.