Federico Sanchez delivers a refreshing and flavourful identity for Japanese cold-brewed tea CORE 

Barcelona-based designer Federico Sanchez has devised a fresh identity for CORE, a Japanese-inspired conceptual tea brand that offers organic cold-brewed tea, inviting us to enjoy quiet introspective moments. “Moments of enjoyment, relaxation and pause.”  

For his solution, Sanchez has devised a visual language that not only captures the calm, contemplative side of the concept, but also the bright and energy-boosting properties of the flavours and caffeine, respectively. “The colour palette was designated by the colour of each product,” he recalls. Selecting deep orange for Koucha (‘red’ tea); deep green for Sencha (green tea); and blossom pink for Sakura (cherry blossom). “The idea was to use them more saturated so that the visual system would be perceived as more fun, happy and friendly,” he adds. 

The focal point, a large fluffy cloud-like wordmark, originated from a hand-crafted typeface. “The idea of the logo is to reflect and transmit through its morphology and subtlety, sensations of pleasure, sympathy and charisma,” Sanchez explains. “These attributes are perceived by their soft forms and counterforms.” With a more geometric and rigid character, Pangram Pangram’s PP Fraktion Mono Sans was chosen to “create a contrast” within the brand whilst being a more informal and playful choice than the typical technical feel of monospaced typefaces. 

As a duo-lingual identity, creating the type-driven identity certainly wasn’t the most straightforward. “For me,” the designer reveals, “it is always a challenge to work both in English and in any other language since I am Argentine, but in this case, the challenge was to use Japanese.”

Federico Sanchez