services rendered: product design, graphic design, marketing
description: in September, I had the privilege of designing and launching the first piece of merch ever for Walnuts, a cafe and microroastery tucked away in Koenji that’s near and dear to my heart. Both the space and the people of Walnuts embodied a laid-back, unpretentious vibe that I wanted to carry through into the design of these shirts.
I drew inspiration from brands like Deus Ex Machina, which produce excellent heavyweight shirts with an element of playfulness that I wanted to channel. For the design, I juxtaposed the Walnuts logo in bold, funky Japanese typography with a drawing of Walnuts’ equally bold and funky rectangular coffee cans.
After the design’s approval, I sourced a local printer and accompanied the owners to the shop for ordering and pickup in order to make sure that the quality of the print was carried through to the finished product. The color ways for these shirts were inspired by the Walnuts space itself; their brand colors of forest green and white were softened to olive green and ivory, and a limited run of bright orange pieces pulled their color from the bold orange cambro that Walnuts uses as a tray for change.
After the print job finished, I took the lead in announcing the launch. This is just my opinion, but I believe that a product’s launch is what sets the tone that differentiates shirts that make you feel like a walking billboard from shirts that you actually want to wear out in public. I wanted to showcase these shirts as being synonymous with the environment they’re based off of, so I shot and edited the product photos you can see throughout this post within and around the Walnuts space.
I also assembled a few graphics for the social media launch. The key visual was loosely inspired by Japanese fashion magazines like Popeye, though we opted to keep things simple and lowkey.
By the way, these shirts are still available for sale over at walnutscoffee.com at the time of this post’s publishing. If you’re interested, I’d recommend snagging one here before they’re gone forever.
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