Work ✿ Concept rebrand

Folgers, Reconsidered

A student concept rebrand that trades Folgers’ bright red supermarket look for a vintage style based on the brand’s history.

Role
Concept, identity design, brand guide layout
Deliverables
Logo, brand seal, palette, type, patterns, brand guide, mockups
Tools
Illustrator, InDesign
Status
Student concept, fall 2025 • not affiliated with Folgers
Folgers Brand Guide cover: a serif F monogram inside a broken oval with ornamental finials, flanked by 18 and 56, in espresso brown on cream

The idea

Folgers has been around since the 1800s, but you can’t tell from its branding today. The current look is bright supermarket red, made to stand out on a grocery store shelf. For this project I asked what Folgers would look like if it leaned into its history instead.

The guide opens with Folgers logos and packaging from over the years, from the old ship tins to today’s red can. The new identity takes its cues from the oldest ones.

Spread of past Folgers logos and packaging: antique harbor-ship tins, a Pioneer Java Coffee canister, sunrise-over-mountains logos, and the current red Classic Roast can
Where it started ✿ Folgers logos and tins, oldest to current

Mission and personality

The guide starts with a mission statement for the brand:

Reconnect coffee lovers with the comforting embrace of the past, while subtly elevating their daily ritual.

It’s backed by five values: honoring heritage, embracing vintage charm, delivering quiet luxury, cultivating connection, and inspiring moments.

Brand guide spread: “Folgers: Brewing Moments, Crafted with Timeless Elegance” over latte-art swirls, beside the mission statement and its five values
Mission ✿ Brewing Moments

The brand’s personality is laid out as what it is and what it isn’t:

  • We are Stylish, ornate, tasteful, vintage, down-to-earth, nostalgic, warm, relatable
  • We are not Gaudy, modern, snobbish, cluttered, mundane, slothful, cold, reserved, distant
Brand guide Appearance spread: We Are and We Are Not word lists under a pale filigree ornament, beside a photo of a woman sipping a latte
Appearance ✿ we are, we are not

The logo and the seal

The identity has two main marks. The logo is Folgers set in Allotropic, wrapped in a ribbon of crimson and caramel swirls, with an est. 1856 badge under the tail. On dark backgrounds it switches to cream and white, and the logotype can also be used on its own in Caramel Latte or Black Mocha.

The brand seal is simpler: an old-style F with a long swash tail inside an open oval, with ornamental finials at the top and bottom and the founding year split on either side, 18 on the left and 56 on the right.

There’s also a coffee bean icon in filled and outline versions, and the slogan stays the same: “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

Brand guide spread: the swirled Folgers logo on white and reversed on brown, the logotype in caramel and mocha, three coffee-bean color swatches with hex, RGB and CMYK values, the 1856 F brand seal, filled and outlined coffee-bean icons, and the slogan
Logo, logotype, color, brand seal, icons & slogan

Color, type and pattern

The palette is three colors, shown in the guide as coffee beans:

  • Sunset Crimson #8C2934 • CMYK 0 71 63 45
  • Black Mocha #3C2415 • CMYK 0 40 65 76
  • Caramel Latte #BA8758 • CMYK 0 27 53 27
  • Headings Monotype Corsiva
  • Body Courier New
  • Logotype Allotropic

For patterns and accents there’s a coffee bean pattern in crimson and caramel, a filigree ornament, a pair of crimson scrolls, and a striped wallpaper pattern made of filigree and beans.

Brand guide spread: coffee-bean patterns in crimson and caramel, a brown filigree ornament, mirrored crimson scrolls, a striped filigree wallpaper, and type specimens for Monotype Corsiva, Courier New and Allotropic
Patterns & filigree ✿ typography

Rules for using it

The usage pages cover which logo to use on light and dark backgrounds, grayscale and white versions of both marks, minimum sizes (1.25 inches in print, 90 pixels on screen), and clear space.

Brand guide Mark Usage spread: logo on light and dark backgrounds, grayscale and white variants of the logo and seal, minimum print and web sizes, and a clear-space diagram
Mark usage ✿ backgrounds, variants, minimum size, clear space

They also show four things not to do: put the logo over a busy pattern; invert, desaturate, or recolor it; shear or skew it; or separate its parts.

Brand guide Unaccepted Usage spread: four crossed-out examples, the logo on a busy damask, recolored versions, a skewed logo and seal, and the logotype separated from its swirl
Unaccepted usage

Mockups

The last section shows the brand in use: a paper cup, a two-sided business card, a Dark Roast coffee bag, an enamel mug with the seal, cups and lids, a sweatshirt, and a hanging sign.

Brand guide Examples spread: a paper cup printed with the swirled Folgers logo, filling with espresso under a machine
Examples ✿ the cup
Brand guide spread: business card front with the logo and back with the seal, name and contact details, beside a mockup of a Dark Roast bag, cups, a lid, a sugar stick and a caramel enamel mug with the seal
Business card ✿ packaging mockups
Brand guide spread: a crimson-lidded cup of coffee beans with a business card and macarons, a woman in a sweatshirt with the logo holding a latte, and a hanging sign with the logo
Mockups ✿ cup, sweatshirt, signage

Folgers is a registered trademark of The J.M. Smucker Company. This is an unsolicited student concept, produced for portfolio purposes, with no affiliation or endorsement.