Dynamic type and a running coffee mug: how Dum Dum Studio brought The Coffee Run community to life

Located in the city of Monterrey, Mexico, is a thriving community that is dedicated to two things: drinking coffee and going on runs. This project, called ‘The Coffee Run,’ was born out of a desire to not only create a positive impact on local businesses, but to foster a community that could share their tastes. Fellow Mexico-based design studio Dum Dum had the pleasure of developing the community’s identity. To communicate the dynamism and vitality of the collective, the studio created a bespoke typeface tinged with the illusion of movement. It was designed entirely using lowercase glyphs to reinforce a light and playful attitude. The team crafted two distinct versions of the wordmark. As Partner Mario Julian Gutierrez explains, the uppercase letters run to the right, and the lowercase are “running back.” Whilst the latter may slightly reduce legibility, it emphasises the joyful flow and movement of running. To give the identity the space and flexibility to evolve in the future, the team opted not to use a specific colour palette. For the first merch drop, they drew inspiration from the aesthetics and colours associated with running – from the smattering of warm terracotta orange  to the circular path the wordmark traces in motion – reminiscent, respectively, of the colour and the oval shape of racetracks. Accompanying these elements, and embodying, quite literally, the community of The Coffee Run, is a textured illustrated mascot. Dum Dum created the design using DALL-E and traced it for the finished outcome. “The running coffee cup has become a mascot for the runners,” Julian Gutierrez tells us, “the community has baptised him as ‘el Patas.’”