Emma from Old Johns Cafe contacted us in 2021 to come up with some sign options for her iconic Coffs Harbour based cafe "Old Johns" located on the Coffs Harbour Jetty Strip.
Old Johns Cafe is a trendy, understated cafe which uses limited colour tones in their branding. The cafe is painted in a contemporary grey colour with gold lettering on the front glass door and uses natural timber and light natural tones throughout.
Initial concepts included timber, black and white acrylic and steel frames for the wall mounted sign. As a local high school is located only 70m away and the footpath directly in front of the cafe having hundreds of students walk past on a daily basis, the sign needed to be solid enough to withstand the foot traffic. These constraints cancelled out hanging a sign from chains from the front of the store so as to not make it an object that children may jump up to try and touch. We used weathered timber in some initial designs with debossed router cut lettering cut from the surface.
A number of black acrylic concepts were also designed in square, short rectangle along with round options.
The facade sign was also conceptualised with timber options and 3d cut acrylic options which were to be mounted to the painted facade directly in keeping with their low-key understated theme.
The final selection made for the wall-mounted sign was a round black acrylic design with minimalist but sturdy steel frame. The lettering was created with 10mm white acrylic with just enough negative space to allow the understated logo speak. The facade also progressed with white 10mm cut acrylic letters for maximum contrast and weather stability (timber may crack over time, acrylic will last forever, important to cafe owners who may not want to be constantly maintaining their signage).
The signs for this cafe are tasteful and understated but most definitely portray a high quality look. We thank the team at One Print & Signage for another amazing collaboration in helping us achieve the exact standards we set out to accomplish with this project.
