New Bag Design
Our Bags from 2019
At CTRL + ALT + DEL Coffee Roasters, we’re constantly innovating and improving to bring you the best coffee experience.
After two years of operation, we decided it was time to redesign our simplistic black and white coffee bags in the Fall of 2021. Starting from scratch, our new bags not only needed to reflect our commitment to sustainability but also our local roots in Guelph, Ontario.
Features of our Bags
Our new bags are:
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Reusable.
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Resealable.
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Recyclable.
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Manufactured locally in Brampton, Ontario.
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Illustrated locally by Sam Phippen, resident of Guelph.
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Perfect for the Bag Return Program. Learn more here.
- Prevents sunlight from affecting coffee quality and taste.
- Features a gas-valve to let CO2 out and stop oxygen from entering. May also serve as a portal to some amazing aromas.
Meet the Artist
Sam Phippen
"My goal was to create packaging that was first and foremost artwork. I wanted to create a branding aesthetic that would embody the young, bold and optimistic energy of this company. As the project developed I realized that I wanted to share the process work that led to the final design because I found each step of the process to be beautiful in and of itself. Below are some of the earliest bag concepts"
"I learned so much about formatting and printing from this project. The manufacturers required very specific file types, colour profiles, export settings, font files and so many more small details which forced me to better understand the function of the programs and file types that I had been working with.
Turning these exciting ideas into something that a manufacturer can actually print proved to be the most challenging and interesting aspect of this project. Most product packaging can only be printed from vector files (coordinate based graphics), meaning that all of the pixel based (raster) images from the ideation stages, needed to be transformed into this new, more refined format. The detailed charcoal drawings had to be "image traced" and became complex shapes composed of millions of "paths" and "vertices" that simulated the original detail of the drawing. The same was done for many of the paper-like and halftone textures. The final results were massively complex vector files.
I included this description of the formatting process because it may be interesting to people familiar with these programs, but also because I found the entire process of this project to be unexpectedly beautiful, especially in the unfinished, in between stages. The procedurally generated results of image tracing, the web of colourful "paths" and the pointillism-like patterning of the anchor points were really inspiring to me, and in part, actually helped inform the design language of this project. Problem solving new ways of expressing ideas within the constraints of a very linear program forced me to rely more on design principles like contrast, balance and space in order to maintain the impact of the original ideas. Without the freedom of expression that comes with more lenient modes of design and art making, the emphasis on the basics of design was even greater."
-Sam Phippen, 2022