Sinjab Coffee Brand

A look behind the design - Refreshing a familiar roadside coffee brand through storytelling, character design, and a more unified customer experience.

DESIGN | Branding • Packaging • Illustration

A playful rebrand that connected local culture with global ambitions through illustration, bilingual branding, and memorable customer experiences.

The rebrand for Sinjab Coffee focused on evolving an already recognisable local brand without losing the familiarity customers had grown attached to over time. Located primarily within filling stations across Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sinjab had built a loyal following through convenience, accessibility, and a personality that felt approachable and distinctly local.

One of the biggest challenges of the project was that the original logo did not include a squirrel, despite the name “Sinjab” translating directly to squirrel in Arabic. The rebrand became an opportunity to bridge that disconnect and create a visual identity that finally gave the brand a memorable central character while still respecting the essence of the original mark.

Rather than completely redesigning the identity, the approach focused on carefully evolving it. The newly introduced squirrel character became the heart of the brand system. Inspired by the curious and energetic nature associated with squirrels, the illustration was designed to feel playful, expressive, and instantly recognisable across multiple applications.

One unexpected characteristic quickly became part of the brand’s personality. No matter where the logo appeared or from what angle it was viewed, the squirrel seemed to maintain eye contact with the viewer. Similar to the “Mona Lisa effect,” the character created a subtle sense of engagement that gave the branding a unique presence across cups, signage, and packaging. This small detail became one of the most memorable parts of the identity system.

“The rebrand introduced the fun and quirky personality the brand always hinted at but never fully expressed.”

Building a Brand Around Personality

The strategy behind the rebrand focused on creating a stronger emotional connection with customers while maintaining the casual and accessible nature of the coffee shop. Because Sinjab operated within busy roadside environments and filling stations, the identity needed to communicate quickly, clearly, and memorably.

Research into competing coffee brands within Riyadh revealed a growing trend toward minimalist international-style branding. Many cafés were beginning to adopt neutral palettes, generic typography, and polished aesthetics that often felt disconnected from local culture and everyday customers. Sinjab took a different direction... instead of imitating high-end boutique cafés, the brand embraced warmth, humour, and familiarity. The visual identity leaned into expressive illustration, bold colour, and storytelling to create something more approachable and culturally memorable than the brand's generic first iteration.

The slogan evolved alongside the visual identity. Rather than pushing an overly aggressive coffee culture message, the tone became more playful and self-aware, speaking directly to regular customers who treated coffee as part of their daily rhythm and routine.

Visual Identity System

The refreshed identity combined warm browns, golden tones, cream accents, and rich coffee-inspired colours to create a visual system that felt energetic and inviting. The branding intentionally balanced modern illustration with a slightly nostalgic character style, helping the café stand apart from more corporate coffee chains.

Arabic typography played a central role throughout the system, allowing the brand to feel grounded within its local context while still functioning comfortably alongside English applications.

The squirrel illustration became highly adaptable across touchpoints. Whether printed on takeaway cups, uniforms, signage, packaging, or merchandise, the character maintained strong recognisability and personality. Its expressive pose and direct gaze helped turn even simple packaging into a brand interaction.

Extending the Brand Beyond the Café

A large part of the rebrand focused on scalability across physical products and customer touchpoints. The identity was designed to move fluidly across coffee cups, takeaway packaging, apparel, menus, promotional graphics, and in-store applications.

Because many locations operated within filling stations, visibility and instant recognition were especially important. The bold illustration style and warm colour palette helped the brand stand out within busy retail environments often dominated by fast food chains and convenience store graphics.

Merchandise became another important extension of the identity. Branded shirts, packaging systems, and reusable cups allowed the squirrel character to become more than a logo. It became a mascot customers could associate with the experience itself.

The identity system was designed around three key principles:

Familiarity

Retain recognisable elements from the original café identity to avoid disconnecting existing customers from the brand.

Personality

Introduce a memorable mascot and visual language that gave the café a more engaging and human presence.

Visibility

Create a bold identity system capable of standing out within busy filling station environments and roadside retail spaces.

“Instead of competing through luxury aesthetics, the brand focused on becoming memorable, approachable, and full of character.”

SWOT Considerations

Strengths

Distinctive character-driven identity
Strong cultural and linguistic connection through the name
Memorable mascot with strong visual personality
Flexible branding system across merchandise and packaging

Weaknesses

Existing brand lacked consistency before the redesign
Filling station locations limited premium café perception
Original logo lacked a clear narrative connection to the name

Opportunities

Expansion through merchandise and branded products
Stronger recognition within Riyadh’s growing café culture
Increased social media appeal through illustration and packaging
Potential for future animated or campaign-based storytelling

Threats

Saturated café market within Saudi Arabia
Growing number of international coffee chains
Competitors adopting trend-driven visual identities

Outcome

The final rebrand transformed Sinjab Coffee into a more expressive and cohesive brand while preserving the familiarity customers already associated with the café. By introducing a squirrel character that felt playful, engaging, and unmistakably recognisable, the identity gained a personality that could extend naturally across packaging, interiors, merchandise, and digital platforms.

The result is a brand that feels approachable, energetic, and deeply connected to the everyday coffee culture of Riyadh while standing apart from the increasingly uniform visual language found across many contemporary café brands.