Situation
Federal is an independent Antipodean coffee shop based in Manchester. Started simply as a means to fund owner Claudio’s passion for skydiving.
As you might expect with such an accidental brand, it has evolved without consistency, so Bert was invited to help bring the brand to life.
Our challenge was to create a brand identity that captures the warmth, authenticity and laid-back charm that customers love about a visit to Federal.
Transformation
To fully understand the Federal brand, we immersed ourselves in their unique, community-focused atmosphere by regularly visiting the café, experiencing their amazing brunch and enjoying their coffee.
We worked in close collaboration with the Federal team using our CoCreation method to understand what makes Federal so unique and to understand their reason for existing, which formed the basis of the narrative and visual identity.
Our CoCreation process defined the key themes that make Federal so unique: pride, community, being welcoming and the mantra of 'if we're not proud we're not done'.
We created the essence of 'Antipodean Brunch Masters' which formed the foundation of the identity. The visual ID retains the rawness of a real independent, allowing for individual expression and flexibility. It uses hand-drawn elements and illustrations to add heaps of character and allow the brand’s personality to shine through. The redesigned logo captures Federal's easy going nature, portraying a wave or flag flying in a warm summer breeze.
Growth
Federal is much more than a coffee shop and cafe, it has created its own community in the heart of Manchester. So much so, that Aussie and Kiwi natives say it feels like home.
Federal’s brunch menu – featuring only high-quality, fresh ingredients from local suppliers – has become so popular that they’ve amassed 60kInstagram followers, get 400k monthly searches and 1.1m TikTok views.
To meet growing demand, Federal has grown from one to four cafes, each with spiralling queues and a loyal fan-base of customers who know brunch at Federal is worth the wait.
