Originally due to launch this year, Jooma is a brand I created with Justin Vella towards the end of 2009. Drawing on Justin's love of good quality coffee and his extensive experience of marketing coffee products he was keen to create a retail coffee experience with a difference. 

Aimed at upmarket coffee drinkers wanting good coffee served quickly, the plan was to pilot an outlet in Cape Town where high volume sales would make such an offer attractive. The second part of the plan was to bring good quality coffee to cultural and sporting events. However, it turns out that the terms and conditions of suitable retail space in South Africa is not attractive enough at the moment and so Jooma will start out entirely mobile. To this end under manufacture are a number of proprietary delivery units that will introduce people to the joys of Jooma Coffee.

I led Justin (and his associates) through a naming exercise and we chose Jooma as the brand name. A name that we believe evokes a sense of nurture as well as a sense of the transformative power of coffee with a distinctive African flavour and a global appeal. In addition to the name and visual identity I came up with “The Inner Sense of Coffee” as the brand-idea to serve as the organising principle of everything the brand does. This idea is also the public-facing brandline that we think has an accessible conceptual depth and that customers are likely to find inviting. 

“Inner sense” suggests an “innate grasp” and it's a play on the word “innocence”, which suggests a “pure” coffee experience. And, in combination with the visual identity, the brand is set to elicit an energetic and passionate grasp of good quality coffee, not only in relation to the highly personal experience of drinking coffee but for everyone involved in delivering the brand.

Click on the brandmark or brandline above to see the Jooma as an entry in my portfolio on this website.