A look into the creation of Out of Office new visual identity.
Where we started...
Progressed to..
Now...
There is a lot of things that need to happen when you start a business — from permits to product to customers — there is an ebb and flow and an expansion that happens as the business starts to grow. As a brand, we want to make space for us to keep on evolving.
But evolving a brand takes thought and time and can encompass color palettes, logos, typography and so much much. So for those who want that deeper look into our process, here is the Out of Office design journey from starting, challenges and where we landed with a more meaningful brand!
1. MISSION / / OUT OF OFFICE
With the messaging on social media, and our super masculine color pallete, we needed to find a better way to bring our values into our brand. For those of you that have been with us since inception, first off, thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU SO SO MUCH. Second, you may remember us as that small, tiny coffee brand that gave you those vacation feels. Just like sending an out of office email. Coffee simplified into some good old fashioned liquid PTO.
I'll be the first to admit, we fell into the age-old trap of website, logo, and things that "looked good", but we didn't really stand for anything other than good coffee and coffee feels.
Our first step in this journey was finding our mission and vision. Paul and I talked for hours and hours circling around in an infinite loop of possibilities. But credit where credit is due, it was our wives that pulled out into the reality of what it is now. Shout out to Jen and Kristine!
For us the office represents being that cog in the wheel. An astronaut dog. the monkey typing on a typewriter. The stuffy walls of a cubicle, no future, no upward mobility. A bamboo ceiling crushing all motivations. The pressures of society or our asian parents telling us to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. It represents everything that society tells us to be that isn't us.
Out of Office is the breakthrough out of that mindset and environment. That's is what this brand is for us. A culmination of dreams, passions and out of the box thinking. This is a special moment for all who have experienced it, and we want to be there from the start.
Out of Office is a journey towards our passions. Our passion is coffee, for you, an entire world of unconventional dreams to choose from. We seek to align with values that are authentically our own. Reclaimed beliefs that are not defined by the boxes society puts us in. We no longer straddle differing monoliths trying to define ourselves. We have tried out that box and have rejected it. We are Out of Office people.
2. Space / / is a privilege.
First, we wanted to be intentional about the spaces we create. Not the utopian Disneyland spaces of manufactured safety, but the real brave spaces we all take daily. We wanted our logo to represent this. An opening to the unconventional and to the values that are authentically us. Sometimes we just needed a real space to open up in the midst of our passions and dreams.
Second, we want to be part of impactful spaces. We are blessed to be part of the specialty coffee industry, as part of this space, we want to add to the conversation rather than just react to it. We want to add out experiences as Asian Americans to this space to grow the pot bigger. Shout out to @coffeeasians, @azncoffeeco for the things they are doing and to new spaces coming in the pipeline!
3. Out of Office or Out of Office Roasters?
We learned our name was just too long for people to remember. We partnered with Dominus Designs to figure out why. It was revealed that the human mind just naturally holds names in syllables of 3-5. So Out--of--Off--ice stuck while the roasters was always dropped. So you can just remember us as Out of Office.
The beginnings of something unconventional.
All this to say, it's been an evolving journey to create our new brand. Its launch is a culmination of a lot of super talented people to create an identity that not only represents who we are as a company today, but also where we're headed. This is the beginning. Over the course of this year, we'll be working hard to create an exhilarating customer journey for all of you.
To start, we have launched the Out of Office / / People. A bit of space on our bags created to uplift our Asian American Pacific Islander creatives. Read more about it here.
Cheers,
Out of Office / / Jonathan
