Co-Creating a Friendly, Authentic Coffee Brand for a Small Family Business

The Context

Martina is a young woman who grew up in Todos Santos, an indigenous Mam community in Guatemala. Her parents are coffee farmers who are constantly exploited by industry middlemen, taking most of the coffee profits and leaving little for Martina’s family.

Martina wanted to help her parents by selling their coffee in the US market with no middlemen, and sending all the money back to her family. This would help her parents pay a fair wage to the harvesters, buy supplies for planting new trees, and show the farmers in Todos Santos that when they are fairly represented at the end of the coffee supply chain, they can make the profit they deserve.

Our Work

I worked closely with her (pro bono) to co-create a package design for the coffee. I provided illustration and print-ready packaging design.

I really wanted to make sure that Martina’s voice was at the center of the creative process so that she would feel that the final product represented her and her family the way she envisioned. I facilitated our creative process together, showing her sketches and different visual directions we could take, getting constant feedback from her, and providing some recommendations on color and typography, ultimately trying to make sure she had the final say.

She raised over $5,000.