In a country accustomed to instant coffee, Sleepy Owl introduced the idea of brewing real beans at home with none of the snobbery.
Communication
Creative Direction
Experience
Interaction
Photography
Packaging
Identity
Day one
Making something for a coffee company is a rite of passage for designers like me who’ve developed a serious long-term relationship with the stuff. So it seemed appropriate that Ashwajeet from Sleepy Owl Coffee was one of the first people to reach out right after I started my studio.
Whaaat? Of course I would be interested! They flew me out to Delhi to spend a weekend with the founders—we spoke over Chinese food and beer, compared notes and sketched ideas.
They told me how they had been friends and room mates for years. How they brewed, packed and shipped everything from their apartment. How important their packaging was, since they depended on repeat customers whose experience really started once the coffee was delivered.
They were informal, transparent and passionate. All the things I needed to get pumped about the work.
At the time, Sleepy Owl made a cold-brew that needed special storage and could only be delivered within the city. They were working on easy-to-ship products—ground beans in filter bags that magically turned into strong coffee when submerged in water.
Their identity had been recently updated by a designer in Delhi. They asked me to use it and make a minimal online store that would sell their new products, with clear communication and a zero-effort experience. Can’t expect instant coffee people to nerd out over this stuff.
That little project turned into a partnership that lasted four years!
Sleepy Owl was selling to casual coffee drinkers, so I decided to keep my work light and airy while adapting their identity to fit. The product would feel like a cafe experience at home. Less talking about plantations, tasting notes and growing height. More telling people to enjoy good, uncomplicated coffee.
I wanted to bring subtle coffee references into unexpected parts of the website, so you’ll see little details like this everywhere.
He who designs must also photograph
The shop couldn’t be complete without a ton of product pictures. For the first version, I sent in references and notes to define the mood, and the team organized a shoot locally.
When we did the second version, Sleepy Owl was ready to launch their new coffee, so they asked me whether I wanted to shoot all of it myself. I certainly wanted to.
This was during Covid lockdowns. They shipped products to me, and I shot them with whatever I could use as props at home (being a coffee nerd helped). No planning shoots during travel restrictions, and we cut out studio costs.
A few years later, the country was still full of people who wouldn’t switch away from instant coffee if their life depended on it.
For Sleepy Owl, that meant going back to the root of the problem and introducing their own instant coffee. Here’s the catch—theirs would be a premium instant, brewed from good Indian beans using a fancy setup to maintain all the flavour.
They did the heavy-lifting, so that you could have an easier time putting milk and coffee together. I hope you’re happy now. I’m not going to pretend that any instant coffee can taste like a freshly brewed espresso, but this one came pretty close.
They asked me to design fun packaging that reflected their quality. The existing boxes had a clean, simple design—maybe too simple. The new pack needed to stand out and feel different from their other offerings. We must’ve tried a dozen options.
What stuck were these circular patterns that revolved around the logo. They feel energetic, like they’re in motion even on a printed label.
Duration
4 years
Followers
4k → 80k
Revenue
12x
Bounce Rate
50% → 5%
Customers
150k+
Ajai Thandi
Co-founder, Sleepy Owl
