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Brand Identity For Blank Street Coffee
Why does Blank Street use two fonts—70% regular, 30% remarkable?
Wolff Olins partnered with Blank Street to evolve the coffee brand from a scrappy startup into a cultural icon. The new identity captures the brand’s duality—balancing function with indulgence and everyday with extraordinary—through a refined visual and verbal system that resonates strongly with Gen Z audiences.
Insights
- The creative north star was “Regularly remarkable”: turning the daily coffee run from a “transactional blur” into small elevated moments—built around brand dualities (high/low, AM/PM, classics/specials).
- Wolff Olins translated those dualities into a system: a logo nodding to the original cart’s rectangular “window” (a literal blank space), a day-to-night palette (6 AM Green to 6 PM Green), and a two-typeface rule—“Regular Sans” for everyday use (70%) vs “Remarkable Sans” for special moments (30%).
- The biggest behavior shift came via art direction: photography intentionally “more Vogue than coffee-shop-stock-photo,” borrowing from fashion/vintage editorial so drinks get treated like a “new sneaker drop.”
- Brand strategy extended beyond customers into hiring: an employee value proposition, “Start something extraordinary,” based on the idea that “the barista experience is the customer experience.”
- The repositioning measurably connected with Gen Z: post-launch, 66% of engaged TikTok audience is 18–24, 62% of Instagram audience is 18–34, UGC rose 80% YoY, and the Glasgow store’s first-month sales were 60% Gen Z; meanwhile the business scaled from a 5x10 cart (Aug 2020) to ~90 locations and ~ $500M valuation (as of July 2025).
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