Northwind Coffee Roasters · Food & Beverage · 2025
A specialty coffee brand that finally tasted like its product
Rebrand and Shopify rebuild for a Pacific Northwest roaster, with a subscription flow and automated email that turned first-time buyers into regulars.
- Services
- Brand identity
- E-commerce
- Lifecycle email
- +148% online revenue, 6 months
- 2.9x email-attributed revenue
- 41% returning customer rate
The brief
Northwind roasted some of the best coffee in the region and sold it on a site that looked like a bulk-ordering portal. Wholesale was healthy, but direct-to-consumer sales were flat and the subscription option was buried three clicks deep. The founders wanted the online store to feel the way the roastery feels: warm, precise, a little obsessive.
What we did
We started with the brand, not the website. Interviews with staff and twenty of their best customers gave us a single idea to design around: clarity of origin. Every bag, page and email would tell you exactly where the coffee came from and why it tastes the way it does.
- Identity. A new wordmark, a flexible label system keyed to roast level, and a photography direction built around natural light at the roastery.
- Store. A Shopify rebuild with a product page that leads with tasting notes and origin, a one-screen subscription builder, and a checkout trimmed to the essentials.
- Lifecycle email. Welcome, first-brew tips, replenishment reminders timed to bag size, and a win-back flow. Everything written in the roaster’s own voice.
The outcome
Within six months online revenue was up 148%, email became the second-largest revenue channel, and more than four in ten customers were coming back for a second order. Wholesale didn’t suffer either. The new brand gave the sales team something they were proud to leave on a cafe counter.
“We used to apologize for our website. Now we send people to it on purpose.”
— Founder, Northwind Coffee Roasters