Black Cup
Café
A complete brand identity for a popular, budget-friendly hangout in BTM, Bengaluru — quaint ambiance, bookshelves, and a student crowd — built to live on everything from a coaster to a wall.
Brand identity for a neighbourhood café and everything in the room.
Black Cup Café is a popular, budget-friendly hangout in BTM, Bengaluru — near Christ College, Koramangala, Bangalore. Known for its quaint ambiance, bookshelves lining the walls, and a steady student crowd. The menu runs from coffees and chais to pizzas and customizable dishes. Not a chain, not trying to be. The brief was to build an identity that matched that personality — warm but not precious, characterful but not loud. Something that felt like it belonged in the room rather than dropped in from a brand manual.
The tagline was already there: simple. stupid. sumptuous. Three words that said everything about how the café wanted to be perceived. The identity had to carry that voice across every surface — the logo, the menu, brand graphics on the walls, coasters on the tables, and stationery at the counter.
tagline: simple. stupid. sumptuous.
From stamp to wall.
A badge built to be stamped, printed, and worn.
The mark is a badge — circular, layered, with a saw-tooth edge that gives it the feel of something pressed rather than printed. A steaming cup at the centre, coffee beans flanking it, the name arcing around the top, and the tagline curving along the bottom. The distressed texture is intentional: it ages the mark, giving it the weight of something that has been around long enough to earn its character. It works equally well debossed on black card, stamped onto kraft paper, or screen-printed on a tote bag.
The palette of a good cup.
Five tones drawn directly from the materials of coffee: the deep brown of an espresso shot, the warm terracotta of fired clay, the amber of caramel, the off-white of cream, and the natural beige of unbleached card. No digital colours. Nothing that wouldn't exist on a café counter. The palette holds across print and environmental applications without ever feeling forced.
Hand lettered. Line drawn. Made for the walls.
Four pieces designed for the café interior. Each pairs hand lettering with a single continuous line illustration — one unbroken stroke that traces a figure or scene. The lettering is loose, script-heavy, the kind of type you might find chalked on a blackboard. The line work is deliberate and unhurried. Together they give the space a personality that no print-and-hang poster could.
On the walls.
The real test of any environmental design is whether it belongs — whether it looks like it grew out of the space rather than being applied to it. At Black Cup Café, the brand graphics sit above the counter alongside the menu — printed large, mounted in frames, living in the room the way they were always meant to.
Menu, flyer, coaster and collaterals.
Logo on the coaster. Letterhead, cards, and print in the stationery suite. Each piece carried the badge mark and palette so the identity held across every touchpoint.
Brand identity curation.
Logo, menu, flyer, brand graphics, stationery, and coaster.