EMBER & BEAN

EMBER & BEAN is a self-initiated WEXILAR concept: an imagined café and small-batch roastery, built to show how one idea can carry from a symbol to a storefront to a booking flow. It is not a real business and was not commissioned by a client.

The brief we set ourselves was simple to write and hard to do well — a café brand that feels warm and considered rather than on-trend, and a website that sells the atmosphere as much as the menu.

The name pairs the glow of a room at night with the craft behind the cup. Three ideas guide every decision that follows: Warmth — low amber light, dark woods, hands around a cup. Craft — seasonal single origins, roasted weekly. Gathering — long tables and late evenings for the neighbourhood.

The symbol is a single seed-shaped leaf whose midrib is drawn as a coffee bean's crease — the plant and the product in one line. It sits inside a circle that reads as a cup rim or a round table. The wordmark is set in spaced capitals with an italic ampersand: classical, but relaxed enough for a chalkboard.

The palette is taken straight from the counter: the dark of a fresh shot, the pale gold of crema, the walnut of the bar. Copper is the only saturated colour, and it's kept for the symbol and for actions — so on screen, the thing to press is always the warmest thing on the page.

Cormorant Garamond carries the voice — headlines, menu items, the wordmark. Jost does the work: navigation, prices, labels and body copy. Spaced capitals in Jost act as the brand's eyebrow, the same device on a coffee bag and a booking screen.

Business cards, a loyalty card that fills with the symbol, coasters and takeaway cups. Each piece uses no more than two colours, so the system stays recognisable when it's printed cheaply, fast, and often.

The retail range is named along the arc of a day and a fire: First Light for the bright, light roast; Hearth for the everyday medium; Last Ember for the dark. Bag colour tracks roast level, so the shelf reads light-to-dark before anyone reads a word.

Generous line spacing, prices aligned to one edge, and descriptions set in italic so they recede behind the item names. Sections follow how people actually order — espresso bar, slow bar, bakery.

A dark fascia with copper lettering, a round projecting sign that works as the symbol alone, and window lettering that repeats the brand line. The lit interior does most of the work — the signage just frames it.

Six repeatable templates — a line of copy, a drink, a new roast, an event, a pattern, an evening post — so the feed stays consistent without every post needing a photographer.

Visitors come to do one of three things: get a feel for the place, check the menu, or book a table. The home page leads with atmosphere and a single clear action; the menu is organised the way the bar is; reservations take one screen — location, date, time, guests, confirm.

On mobile the same three jobs get thumb-sized controls: a one-tap route to the menu, an order-ahead bar that stays in reach, and a booking flow that fits on a single screen.