Hello Everyone!
We’re very excited to share that this week our retail bags hit the shelves with new packaging. We hope you love them as much as we do!
The process of redesigning our bags has been a long time in the making: a lot of emails, meetings, and mock-ups. Our goal was to figure out a design that was true to Commonplace, full of information that our customers desire, and a beautiful object to have on our shelves and wherever else you #takecommonplace!
We worked with Colin Miller, who’s designs have graced Commonplace for the past five to six years in the form of everything from our workcloths, utility mugs, and tote bags.
“Nearly a year ago, when we first starting talking about this project, the same themes kept coming up,” Colin said, “which all kind of revolved around being useful. Useful to the roasters, but also useful to the customers. We aimed to create a design in which everything would have a purpose. When we pushed forward with this idea of utility we made sure to not lose the familiar feeling people have grown to expect from Commonplace – we want to make the coffee accessible.”
“The special thing about coffee is that it is for everyone and it can bring us all together,” Colin added. “When a customer picks up a bag of Commonplace coffee we want them to know what they are getting, and what to do with it.
He worked with Phil, our head roaster, to create a bag design that was informative and fun.
“As Colin and I thought about what would be best,” Phil said, “we wanted first and foremost to keep it simple but informative. The basic bag design allows us to have company information, some minor descriptive verbiage on the side gusset, and most importantly to me, a basic brew ration for home use.
“We also wanted to have the labels do most of the heavy lifting for differentiation; we retained and drew more attention to the colors attached to regions (Red is from Africa, Yellow from America, Blue from the Pacific Rim, Green for blends, Orange for Decaf), and got to add tasting notes to boot. Having all of this information (including date stamping) on a printed label decreased our application time by a good amount. Additionally, we were excited to get rid of tin ties and go for a resealable bag.”
All of these aspects come together that makes a bag that both simple, but useful and beautiful. And, hidden on the bottom, is a line from our namesake poem:
THE COMMONPLACE.
THE commonplace I sing;
How cheap is health! how cheap nobility!
Abstinence, no falsehood, no gluttony, lust;
The open air I sing, freedom, toleration,
(Take here the mainest lesson—less from books—less from the schools,)
The common day and night—the common earth and waters,
Your farm—your work, trade, occupation,
The democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all.
– Walt Whitman
