Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Drinks’

Recent Work: Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee™

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee™

I’ve recently had the opportunity to begin working with Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee™. The project was structured around a music tour where the coffee company would be partnering with the band, Third Day. Although they have a stellar product and concept, the company wasn’t completely satisfied with their brand identity and were to redefine it. Given that we were on a bit of a time crunch, we sought to develop a product and information line that drifted from the current band identity but didn’t seek to immediately overthrow it. This way, we could a strategy for the brand in the time that it deserves. The line turned out great and included information cards, business cards, coffee bag labels, tote bags, tee shirts, vinyl signage and a splash page for their website. This is a wonderful company to work with and I am looking forward to working with them on further developing their brand identity, website and packaging.

I highly recommend checking them out at DrinkCoffeeDoGood.com. They have a great product and and even greater desire to help the people of Rwanda who are growing the coffee.  

• Every bag purchased provides a rural farmer with a proper Living Wage and the dignity and self respect that comes from providing for oneself.

• In 2004, Land of a Thousand Hills committed to paying at minimum of $1.26 per lb. to the grower for their finest coffee, more than three times the unjust 40 cents often paid by other coffee companies. Currently, the growers are consistently paid an average of $1.86 per lb.

• Land of a Thousand Hills also invests one dollar per 12 oz. bag sold to fund micro-finance programs that help Rwandans start small businesses. Approximately $3 total per 12 oz. bag is invested in the Rwandan economy.

(more…)

Crema Coffee

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Cuban Coffee, Crema Nashville

Last Friday, I went out to lunch with a few friends and learned about a new (well, being that I am a little late on this trend, newer) coffee shop in town. Being as though coffee plays a major role in my daily diet, I was more than intrigued. Unfortunately, I had to get back to work and was not able to join them on Friday afternoon when they went. Later that evening, I was on the bus with one of my clients, Relient K, and overheard both Travis and Derek, members of the crew, raving about the same place. We returned from the show in Greenville on Sunday morning and I had to check out this place on the way to lunch. Unfortunately, they were closed and a visit to this coffee shop alluded me once again.

When I first began LaCroix Design Company and LaCroix Merchandising, I had big ideas about what working for myself would be like. One of those included me taking my laptop to various locations to spend time working on projects there. However, over the past couple of years, those out of office excursions have dwindled. I now find leaving the office to be a bit of an inconvenience. My workload has increase quite a bit over the last two and half years and in that time, I have made it a priority to to equip my workspace to be everything that I would need. Not only do I have all my supplies and reference materials here but I have also created it to be an aesthetically pleasing place to work. Additionally, to fuel my constant coffee craving, I subscribe to Intelligentsia’s Roaster’s Choice plan which provides me with three pounds of great coffee every month. On top of that, I have a wonderful girlfriend who works at Starbucks and regularly brings me tasty beverages home.

With all the talk of this new coffee shop’s grandeur on my mind, I decided to get out of the office and take a little field trip today. I have been a little cooped up in here with a heavy workload and am working on a project which required a number of hand drawn typefaces and illustrations. Therefore, I packed up my sketchbook, ipod and some drawing tools and headed over to Crema Coffee. Upon Derek’s advice, I ordered myself a double Cuban Coffee and grabbed a seat at the bar facing the window. The drink was phenomenal and I do not recall ever having a coffee drink taste so good. Additionally, the place had a great vibe to it. I spent about and hour or so there working on some rough sketches and it was a great place to get away for a bit. I eventually had to head out for fear that I would be there reordering Cuban Coffees all day.

I am now highly recommending Crema to anyone who will listen. It will definitely be a more excursion in my work day. In fact, there is a good chance that I will be back in there before the week is over. If you are here in Nashville, definitely go check it out and let me know what you think.

CREMA

Hours: 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM Mon – Fri &

7:30 AM to 3:00 PM on Saturdays

Address: 15 Hermitage Avenue,

Nashville, TN 37210