Oxide Design Co.

Native Grounds Coffee identity

In the second installment of my college projects, I would like to showcase a fictitious coffee company that I created a few years back. This was my first stab at package design, and also one of my first logo projects. Growing up, I was always fascinated by the arrowheads that my grandfather’s collected. He grew up near Native American land and collected them as a young boy. He even taught me how to make my own arrowheads by carving away at pieces of flint. With Native American lineage on both sides of my family, I felt I would have the available resources to create a respectful identity, which was a concern of both my professor and myself.

When I began research for the project, I knew I would have to make a trip home. Not only did my parents have just the right library of books, but I knew my mother would help me figure out how to make a proper bag. After researching some of the containers used by Native Americans, I found that ceramics, leather, and various natural materials were used to create small pouches. Although leather is a perfectly reasonable material for mass-produced packaging, I choose to go another direction. I bought burlap sack material in the colors I had chosen for the company and made them into convenient draw string bags. However, I did choose a more traditional cup for serving in the world of commercialized coffee .

After I graduated from college, I decided to check if the domain was available. It turned out that there was a company operating under the same name less than two hours from my hometown. I contacted the owner and offered the entire identity package — free of charge. So far, there hasn’t been any progress on that front, but I’m hopeful anyway.

Here’s a look at the current Native Grounds web site. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, and maybe someday one of my favorite college projects will find new life in the real world.