In 2025, some of the most memorable coffee-centered design projects were clearly built around the feelings designers wanted to inspire among guests — comfort and belonging, wonder and spectacle, clarity and calm.
Across cafes and packaging, the work often hinged on how to communicate identity quickly, whether that meant translating a landscape into a visual language, carving out softness inside hard urban shells or leaning into playful storytelling.
As we continue our year in review, here is a look back at some standout design work, as featured in our ongoing Design Details series.
Daily Coffee News’ 2025 Year in Review is our annual look back at the people, places and ideas that shaped coffee this year. Read the full series.
Places
Design Details: Drinking Espresso With Venetian Lagoon Water
Coffee lovers seeking a literal flavor of Venice, Italy, can now drink espresso with water drawn from the Venetian Lagoon. Part espresso bar, part laboratory and part art installation, the Canal Café in the Arsenale area of the lagoon is part of the Italian city’s Biennale Architettura, the every-other-year architectural exhibition that runs from May through November. It involves a sytem of tanks and filters connecting the lagoon to a mobile espresso station… read more
Photo by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Diller
Design Details: A Soaring Glass Dragon at The Duo in Queens
A day-to-night cafe and bar on Main Street in Queens, New York, called The Duo features a dramatic floating, twisting glass sculpture that captivates guests and reflects light differently throughout the day. Spanning just over 1,070 square feet, the cafe in Flushing has 30-foot ceilings. The New York-based hospitality design-build firm Design Next Agency originally proposed an upper level for additional seating, yet when the landlord declined, the designers looked upward to a canvas… read more
Photo courtesy of Design Next Agency.
Design Details: Kafeterija as a Workshop in Belgrade
Prior to their work designing a location of Kafeterija, a well-known coffee chain in Serbia, the team at KIDZ Studio often used a Kafeterija location as an alternate office, finding the setting cozy and creatively inspiring. “The collaboration between KIDZ and the Kafeterija began with the question, ‘Can we work not only in the Kafeterija but also together with it?’” the Belgrade-based design firm recently told DCN… read more
Photo by Ilya Ivanov, courtesy of KIDZ Studio.
Design Details: Phases of the Sun at Bonne Bouche in Ukraine
On the ground floor of a post-Soviet residential block, the cafe Bonne Bouche opens up to the street with wide glazing, summer terraces and a colorful pastry program. The 200-square-meter (about 2,150 square feet) café brings a bright, sunlit front hall together with a softly lit inner room, wrapping both in rounded terrazzo surfaces and warm yellow upholstery… read more
Photo by Andriy Bezuglov, courtesy of YOD Group.
Design Details: Warmth of Wood at Space Timefill Cafe in South Korea
In South Korea, Space Timefill is a nearly 1,800-square-foot cafe inside an aging residential complex in Cheongju. The age of the building and its interior materials presented a unique set of challenges for the design studio SAISA, which sought to remove boundaries between the outside and the inside while transforming the space into a welcoming and modernized coffee shop… read more
Photo by Kobou Studio, courtesy of SAISA.
Design Details: Fungus-Derived Materials at Broche in Oxford, England
Broche Coffee is a tiny coffee shop in the heart of Oxford, England’s Jericho neighborhood, serving fresh baked goods and high-quality specialty coffee. The shop’s small size and the protected historical architecture status of the neighborhood presented interesting challenges to the architecture and design studio NAAW. The firm sought to “revitalize and make this inconspicuous corner attractive and comfortable without resorting to drastic measures and seamlessly blending it into its surroundings,” according to a project description shared with DCN… read more
Photo by Luke Hayes (@lukehayesphotography), courtesy of NAAW
Design Details: Inside the Box at Klim Coffee in Victoria, Australia
In a new boutique business development in the bustling southeastern suburb of Mount Waverley, Victoria (Australia), is the flagship roastery cafe of Klim Coffee Roasting Co. Designed by the firm SuiL, following the client’s vision of a distinctive cafe within a business hub that shares the entire coffee-making process, the shop features a distinct “grid” and “box” design language, reinforcing the concept of craftsmanship… read more
Photo by Peter Clarke Photography, courtesy of SuiL.
Packaging
Design Details: Collectable Cards With Blueprint Coffee
St. Louis, Missouri-based specialty roaster Blueprint Coffee has rolled out a bold packaging refresh that includes a label that essentially becomes a collectable, tactile field guide for users. The new whole-bean bags — sold in 10-ounce, 2-pound and 5-pound sizes — keep the brand’s unmistakable saturated blue and offer a fresh iteration of the brand’s isometric cube logo… read more
Photo courtesy of Blueprint Coffee.
Design Details: Blank Street Adds a Blank Space
The New York-born coffee chain Blank Street is rolling out a comprehensive rebrand, including a new range of green colors and a new logo that prominently features a literal blank space. The company founded by former venture capital co-workers Vinay Menda and Issam Freiha with a single Brooklyn coffee cart in 2020 has since swelled to some 90 locations across New York, Boston, Washington D.C. and the UK… read more
Photo courtesy of Wolff Olins/Blank Street.
Design Details: The Subjective Shape of Flavor With Webe Coffee
Despite the specialty coffee industry’s incessant quest to codify the language of flavor — thus creating some sort of objective differentiation from flatlined commodity coffee — the perception of flavor remains infinitely subjective. It’s perhaps even whimsical… read more
Photo courtesy of WeBe Coffee.
Design Details: Mountainous Landscape Patterns at Salto in Colorado
The aspen trees, alpine lakes and granite facades of the mountainous landscapes surrounding Salto‘s lively cafe in Nederland, Colorado, informed a comprehensive rebrand of the coffee company. Sitting at 8,200 square feet in Boulder County, the company founded by Karina and Marcus Luscher in 2012 has been riding high on the rebrand since the middle of last year… read more
Photo courtesy of Salto Coffee.
Design Details: Atomic Coffee Roasters Spreading Energy
Peabody, Massachusetts-based Atomic Coffee Roasters unveiled an explosive new look in late 2024 through a comprehensive brand refresh. As expressed on bags of roasted coffee, new Atomic elements include a redesigned logo, vibrant colorways to identify specific coffee types, new artwork and name changes for multiple blends… read more
Photo courtesy of Atomic Coffee Roasters.
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