Overview
Liángshí Café is a self-initiated concept — a personal branding project, not a real café. The identity hasn’t been used by a business or produced as real packaging; the images below are presentation mockups.
The idea
The name comes from the Chinese concept of “Liángshí (糧食)” — grain or essential nourishment. The project positions coffee as more than a beverage: a daily ritual that restores energy and creates a moment of pause.
The brief I set myself
Create a minimal, culturally inspired identity that communicates warmth, authenticity, and craftsmanship, connecting the meaning behind the name with the welcoming character of specialty coffee culture.
Key decisions
- Characters inside a ring. The emblem sets 糧食 inside an irregular ring, like the mark a cup leaves on a table. The contrast between the structured lettering and the uneven ring gives the mark both presence and a handmade quality.
- A small, warm palette. Navy, cream, kraft tan and coffee brown carry across every touchpoint.
- An emblem that works on its own. At small sizes — app icons, stickers, loyalty stamps — the emblem stands alone; on signs, cups and bags it locks up with the serif wordmark.
Design
The identity pairs an expressive serif wordmark with the circular emblem. The storefront at the top of this page shows how the two work together at architectural scale: the light-on-dark treatment creates a clear focal point above the entrance.
The mark at small sizes
In the café
Packaging
Uniform and social
Outcome
A complete identity concept — mark, wordmark, palette and a set of applications — that connects the name, its graphic language and the café setting. It remains a concept.
What I’d do next
Check the emblem’s legibility with people who read Chinese, and write short brand guidelines covering clear space, minimum sizes and colour values.