Studio NARI turns 3TEMP’s filter brewers into cultural objects — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design
Professional coffee equipment is technically sophisticated but culturally inert. Brands in this category speak fluently about extraction rates, temperature precision and batch capacity, yet rarely claim any territory beyond the spec sheet. 3TEMP, the Swedish filter brewing specialists whose tank-less machines won ‘Best All-Round Filter Brewer’ at the London Coffee Festival 2022, approached London-based Studio NARI with a different ambition. The existing logotype, an ultra-minimal mark built from continuous modular linework that echoes the precision and flow of the machine itself, would remain fixed. Everything around it needed to evolve – from a system that communicated performance into one that could stake a claim on how filter coffee culture looks, feels and behaves.
Studio NARI’s strategic foundation rests on what they call “Brewing Culture” – a belief that brewing operates as expression and identity, not merely as a technical process. The positioning draws from Scandinavian clarity and a street-smart global sensibility, reframing the product from equipment into a platform for choice, rhythm and creative control. “A lot of the category leans heavily into either heritage cues or very cold, technical minimalism where the machine becomes the sole focus,” explains Dom Vine, Senior Designer at Studio NARI. “Instead, we focused on building something contemporary and culturally relevant, with a strong emphasis on the people and environments around the product.”
The typographic system works outward from that minimal existing wordmark. Greed Condensed from Displaay leads headlines, balancing clarity with a softness that prevents the identity from tipping into coldness. Circular handles body copy, its geometric precision carrying subtle references to Scandinavian design values. For typographic details, Studio NARI chose Cucina Neretta – a slab-like construction that echoes the linear structure of the wordmark while introducing something more crafted and tactile. Together, these faces allow the system to flex from technical communication through to emotional moments, softening the engineered simplicity at the identity’s core.
Colour presented its own challenge. The palette evolved from 3TEMP’s existing colours, pushed into a more contemporary and expressive space while remaining grounded in strong neutrals. Burnt orange emerged as the lead colour – more unexpected than a traditional brown, yet still connected to the warmth, roast and ritual of coffee. Warm white, charcoal and mocha anchor the system, creating the clean, premium base the brand's Scandinavian origins demand. “To balance those grounded tones with a more cultural, street-smart energy, we introduced accent colours like butter yellow, lilac and peppermint,” Vine shares. “Used sparingly, these brighter hits allow the brand to flex across campaigns, social content and merchandise without overpowering the core identity.”
The visual language draws explicitly from editorial design, streetwear and industrial form – references that might seem disparate but find coherence in their shared directness. Contemporary magazine layouts informed how Studio NARI handles hierarchy, whitespace and typographic moments in supporting clear visual storytelling. Streetwear culture shaped the art direction, campaign language and merchandise approach, treating the machine less like equipment and more like a cultural object to engage with, wear, photograph and identify with. The machine’s own industrial form then became the backbone of the identity’s structure: clean lines, modular components and engineered details reflected in graphic elements and layout. Strong typographic moments add confidence while softer spacing, colour and proportion keep things warm.
Where much of the system operates in digital and print applications, the KYMERA installation translated the brand into physical space. Studio NARI approached it like a three-dimensional editorial layout, using structure, negative space, rhythm and considered colour to guide how people moved through and engaged with the machine. “Working closely with the 3TEMP team, we explored different objects and materials in the space, using accent colours in unexpected ways to create moments of energy and surprise,” Vine recalls. Contemporary, everyday elements grounded the installation in the street-level culture built into the brand, while still centring the machine and its performance.
The technical challenge of building a system that works equally well for global hospitality rollouts and design-led independent cafés required considerable precision. Typographic legibility at multiple scales, colour fidelity across screen, print and fabricated materials, and how hierarchy translates from digital interfaces to hardware, signage and spatial environments all demanded attention. Studio NARI developed structured guidelines around layout, colour usage and levels of expression – controlled where it needs to be, but open enough to support campaigns, collaborations and moments of cultural expression. The work evolved the identity from high-performance brewing system into a statement for modern coffee culture, allowing it to speak to global hospitality groups and design-led independents with equal clarity.