2022Fiji Wild Coffee
Brand Strategy | Brand Identity | Packaging | WebsiteThe goal:To reimagine and elevate the brand of a nonprofit-turned-coffee company, without losing sight of their mission and heart.
Fiji Wild partners with local Fijian communities to deliver sustainably crafted, naturally sourced products of exceptional quality from the islands of Fiji to the rest of the world. The brand’s premier offering— Fiji Wild Coffee— is an exceptionally smooth, high-caffeine blend made from wild-growing coffee cherries that are cultivated, harvested, dried, and fermented by local villagers in the Fijian highlands, then shipped to the U.S. and small-batch roasted in Park City, UT. With the majority of their profits going back into the villages that harvest the coffee, the team at Fiji Wild was looking to expand product sales to a wider audience in order to increase their impact.
Building a lasting brand foundatioNOne of the major challenges Fiji Wild was facing when we began this process was how to grow as a company while staying true to their original goals: to increase prosperity, opportunities, and pride among Fijian highland communities, all while fostering consumers’ understanding and admiration of Fijian culture and raising the bar for the treatment of coffee farmers globally. In order to ensure that the growth of the company would be guided by (rather than compete with) these goals, we worked together to establish clear and succinct purpose, mission, vision, values statements to serve as the foundational substance of the brand.
In a highly saturated market, it was also imperative that the Fiji Wild brand caught the attention of the right people— curious, open-minded adventurers who want to do right by the planet and the people who live on it, and who appreciate the uniqueness of the product. We conducted audience surveys and market research to determine how the Fiji Wild brand could best connect with these people and stand out in a sea of other purpose-driven coffee companies, identifying key messaging themes and design cues that would both align with the core foundational values of the Fiji Wild brand and appeal to their ideal customers.
DEVELOPING AN AUTHENTIC BRAND ECOSYSTEMFiji Wild had outgrown its original DIY branding, so with our brand substance and market research findings as a guide, we set out to develop a new identity that would reflect the quality and rarity of the coffee while maintaining the company’s authentic, down-to-earth vibe. Together, we landed on 6 key personality traits— adventurous, compassionate, curious, respectful, creative, and loyal — to use as a starting point to develop the brand’s look and feel.
In addition to conveying the brand’s personality and communicating the premium nature of the product, it was imperative that the identity faithfully honor Fijian culture without appropriating it. With the help of a photo and video library put together by the team over their 10 years of trips to the highlands, along with input from their local Fijian partners, we developed a color palette inspired by the product and the natural landscape of the island, along with a graphical language that takes cues from traditional Fijian craftsmanship.
The Fiji Wild wordmark was drawn by hand to feel rough-hewn and human, while at the same time crafted with great intention and careful balance. Organic, bold, and exceedingly sturdy, it was built able to adapt to a variety of applications. Hidden in its structure is a character dubbed the “Fiji Wild Human” — an embodiment of the company’s “Live Wild” mantra who can stand on its own as an iconic representation of the brand.
Alongside the logo, we developed a versatile graphic system for use on packaging, products, social media, and web, designed to allow the brand to expand beyond its initial offering and into other Fiji-sourced products when the time came. To support the graphics and convey key messaging, Fried Cactus Studio’s Voice was chosen for its handmade and authentic feel.
PackagingThe Fiji Wild Coffee bag was designed to reflect a distinct sense of place— on the front, the highland villages where the coffee cherries are processed, and on the back, the ocean that surrounds the island chain. As a nod to Fijian culture, we recreated a pattern from a traditional tapa cloth to use on the sides of the bag and throughout the rest of the identity.
WEBSITE + SOCIALTo share the new Fiji Wild with the world, we completely redesigned their website to reflect their updated look and messaging, and built out a suite of templates in Canva so the team could easily create on-brand social content. Additionally, we repurposed their existing video footage into an Instagram ad designed to showcase the brand and attract new customers.
Brand GuideFinally, everything was passed off to the Fiji Wild crew with a comprehensive, 54-page brand bible that would serve as their north star as they expanded, complete with substance and audience overviews, guides to brand personality, storytelling, and messaging, and a style guide to help their internal team put it all into practice.
“To say that it has been a pleasure would be an understatement! To see the new Fiji Wild brand come to life has been an amazing journey and I'm beyond proud of what has been created. ”
-Lance Nelson, Fiji Wild
