Designing a sweatshirt for a local coffee shop
From Place to Piece
Duration: Two (2) weeks
Type: Apparel design for small business
Role: Digital illustrator, designer
Tools: Linearity Curve, Figma
The Ask
Vessel Craft Coffee is a popular stop along the Elizabeth River Trail in Norfolk, VA. With a minimalist aesthetic, ethically sourced coffee, and a versatile community space, Vessel has become more than just a place to grab a cup of coffee.
For the upcoming holiday season, owner Sarah Cowherd wanted to introduce a sweatshirt so customers could take a little piece of Vessel home with them.
A sweatshirt for Vessel needed to capture the spirit of the place, feel connected to the cafe, and be recognizable.
The task sounds simple, but good merchandise has to do more than display a logo.
I wanted to create a design that was recognizable without feeling like an advertisement.
With references and inspo in hand, I set forth and began sketching out some concepts that could translate Vessel's identity into something people would genuinely want to wear.
Finding the Idea
Vessel's visual identity is intentionally minimal, with a palette of black and white accented by organic tones. Still, there was more to draw from than the visual identity alone. The space itself offered several recognizable details: the coffee roasting operation, the lushness and charm of the Chelsea neighborhood where it's located, and perhaps most notably, the large garage door that opens the cafe to the outside when the weather is good.
I began exploring how these elements could translate into a simple graphic that could carry the identity of the coffee shop without relying on its logo.
Using Linearity Curve for sketching and a Figma mockup tool for understanding placement, I came up with some potential designs.
For my initial concepts, I landed on three directions: coffee branches, the Vessel storefront, and a sailboat on the water.
First, the coffee branches grew out of the organic elements I wanted to bring into the design.
Next, for this storefront iteration, I chose to leave out the garage door; the building is horizontally long, and simplifying the facade allowed the illustration to work better within the constraints of the garment.
Finally, the sailboat speaks to the local culture: Norfolk is, after all, a nautical town :)
For the front of the sweatshirt, I wanted to explore a more direct expression of the Vessel brand. I developed three variations of the chest mark, ranging from simple text to a more prominent combination of the Vessel logo and name.
The first kept things simple with text alone. The second introduced the logo with the name arching beneath it, while the third pushed that treatment further with a filled-in version of the mark.
After reviewing the initial concepts, Sarah chose the storefront direction for the back. She also pointed out that the garage door was an important part of the cafe's character and asked that it be included. She liked the coffee branches as well, and wondered if they could be incorporated into the final design.
For the front, she gravitated toward the filled-in version of the Vessel logo.
This feedback from Sarah gave me a clear direction for refinements.
Making it Work
Once the direction was chosen, I had to figure out how to make the illustration work on the back of a garment. The original storefront is quite wide, so I cut back much of the building to create a composition that would fit comfortably within the available space. I decided to bring the garage door back into the illustration, while leaving out the portion of wall that extends beyond it and the section of the building that rises above the awning.
I also experimented with incorporating the coffee branches, but found it difficult to balance them with the architectural illustration. The two styles felt too different to sit together naturally. Instead, I drew a potted coffee plant and found that placing it inside the garage created a more cohesive way to bring that organic element into the design.
For the front, the process was more straightforward. I refined the original sketch using Vessel's existing logo and typeface, keeping the treatment simple and consistent with the brand.
The OG storefront illustration…
… reduced for space (what I sent for review)…
… and reworked to fit the garage :)
The coffee branches became a potted plant, preserving that organic element <3
The Final Piece
The final design brings the pieces together: the simplified Vessel storefront, now complete with its garage door and a potted coffee plant tucked into the garage window. On the front, the refined Vessel logo provides a simple, recognizable counterpart to the more illustrative back.
The finished design feels distinctly like Vessel. By translating the cafe itself into a simplified illustration, the design turns a familiar place into something wearable. The challenge was finding the balance between capturing the character of the space and keeping the design simple enough to feel at home on a sweatshirt. The result is a piece that is instantly recognizable to those who know the cafe, while still standing on its own as a design.
While the design may be finished, there's still one more step ahead. As of this writing, Sarah is searching for a printer, so the finished product remains to be held in hand. With bated breath, I'm excited to see this familiar neighborhood joint leave the screen and take its final form as a wearable piece!