Warm by all accounts: Clay’s CafePay revamp combines hospitality’s zest with accounting’s precision

CafePay, a game-changer for the busy café and restaurant industry, is a start-up platform that simplifies payroll, finance, HR, and tax compliance tasks for eateries of all scales. The San Francisco-based UX/UI agency, Clay, gave their image a refresh and offered a cost-effective solution by designing and launching the website on Webflow.

The custom logo was designed to be versatile and distinctive. The initial concept blended the letter ‘C’ with a clock symbol, which then naturally led to the wordmark The team then refined the details of the letterforms – adjusting balances, serifs, optics, and shapes – to create an ownable aesthetic.

“In our research phase, we noticed some duality in the product,” Design Director Oleg Turbaba tells us. “Though CafePay operates as a payroll technology platform, it exclusively serves the restaurant industry.” To reflect this duality, Clay opted for a combination of serif and sans serif typefaces within the brand’s typography, pairing Ivar Display by Letter from Sweden and Dinamo’s ABC Diatype. “It may not be immediately obvious, yet they complement each other effectively. We were looking for typefaces with different characters and vibes but with the same proportional features (cap height/x-height ratio),” he adds. Diatype provides a friendly charm and high legibility in titles and text, while Ivar Headline (Italic) introduces a touch of elegance and is used to highlight certain words in titles.

In terms of the colour palette, Clay wanted to convey warmth while maintaining an energetic feeling, leading to the selection of orange as the accent colour. The rest of the hues were meticulously chosen as well, whereby the team created a system with a secondary and a greyscale palette. “All the colours within these palettes blend seamlessly, creating a lively yet cosy ambience that aligns perfectly with CafePay’s identity,” Turbaba notes.

“Crafting a visual language system that effectively communicates the brand’s essence across diverse platforms – social media, presentations, or billboards – was particularly intriguing.” The final identity, Turbaba reflects, “exudes a timeless and classic warmth, blending sophistication with user-friendly simplicity.” Because of this, the team is confident that the identity makes its mark in the realm of payroll systems.

Clay

CafePay