Tidewater Office brews a slower identity for Ninebark Coffee
The Portland studio swapped flashy cups for pressed flowers, pencil illustrations and menus written like field notes.
Ninebark is a neighbourhood café on Portland’s east side with a garden out back and a reputation for very long conversations. The owners asked Tidewater Office for an identity that would slow people down rather than hurry them through a queue.
The studio built the brand around a field notebook. Menus are written in pencil-style lettering and illustrated with sketches of the plants in the garden, and every season a pressed flower from the garden is scanned and printed on the cups.
Small details, slowly noticed
The logotype is set in a modest serif with a single sprig of ninebark tucked into the counter of the letter b. “We wanted regulars to discover something new every few months,” says Tidewater’s Eli Brandt. “The brand rewards people who stay for a second cup.”
