ICM is not a coffee brand. ICM is the infrastructure that makes Indian coffee brands possible.
Subko sells coffee to consumers. Blue Tokai sells coffee to consumers. Indian Coffee Mart sells capability to growers, curers, traders, and roasters — the ability to trade transparently, to be discovered, to become a brand.
This distinction shapes every design decision. ICM's visual language must feel like a trusted system, not a consumer product. It must carry the authority of a commodity exchange and the warmth of a farming community. It must look serious enough for a roaster evaluating a ₹10 lakh purchase, and approachable enough for a smallholder farmer in Coorg listing their first lot.
The single most powerful thing ICM can build visually is trust. Trust through clarity. Trust through consistency. Trust through treating every estate and every lot with the same careful visual attention Subko gives its packaging — and Araku Coffee gives its seed-to-cup journey.
"Where India's coffee trade becomes transparent — from estate to roaster, without shadows."
02
The Reference Landscape
Six brands studied. A single clear positioning emerges.
The reference audit covered Subko Coffee, Third Wave Coffee Roasters, Araku Coffee (19/91 journey), So,Coffee, Badra Coffee, Hidden Grounds, and Total.Coffee. Each occupies a different position — which collectively define exactly where ICM must sit.
Reference Analysis
Subko Coffee
Closest visual reference
Typography restraint, warm palette, origin pride, label-system thinking. But D2C consumer — ICM borrows the visual language only.
Araku 19/91
Process documentation model
19 steps from seed to cup. ICM's chain section is directly inspired by this — but stops at the green bean, not the cup.
Total.Coffee
B2B listing structure
Closest functional analogue. Filtered by origin/process/variety. ICM brings this structure with far better design and Indian-specific depth.
So,Coffee
Content & storytelling model
Content-led digital supply chain. Estate stories, people profiles, community. ICM's editorial content strategy follows this model.
Third Wave Coffee
What ICM is not
Consumer roaster. Clean product presentation but stops at roast profile. ICM never reaches this far — green bean is always the boundary.
Badra Coffee
High-altitude Indian origin
Kodaikanal estate at 1,800 MASL. Represents the underrepresented origins ICM must surface — Tamil Nadu, not just Karnataka.
Borrow from these references
Subko's typographic restraint and label-system thinking
Araku's process chain documentation — 19 steps mapped
Total.Coffee's filtering by origin, varietal, process, grade
Badra's high-altitude pride — origin specificity over region generality
Hidden Grounds' product card clarity — single-origin data hierarchy
Leave behind
Consumer café aesthetic of Subko and Third Wave
Roast profiles, tasting notes, brewing guides — not ICM's domain
Hidden Grounds' American market D2C framing
Araku's world-coffee-school positioning — ICM is a marketplace, not academy
Total.Coffee's clinical interface without Indian identity
So,Coffee's blog-only model — ICM is marketplace + content
03
Brand Personality
ICM is
Authoritative — but warm
Transparent — without performance
Precise — but never cold
Deeply Indian — in origin and script
Enabling — not selling
Proud — not loud
ICM is not
A consumer lifestyle brand
A government portal or cooperative
Cold, clinical, or SaaS-generic
A classifieds board
A roasting or cupping brand
Aspirational in a western sense
04
Colour System
Sourced from the chain — bark, earth, dried cherry, raw parchment, green canopy.
Ink
#1C1208
Background. Headlines on light. Maximum authority.
Bark
#3D2010
Primary headings. Card headers. Section dividers.
Estate
#6B3F1A
Interactive elements. CTAs. Active states. Prices.
Copper
#B87333
Labels, tags, metadata, captions, dividers.
Harvest
#D4956A
Secondary accents. Subheadings on dark.
Parchment
#F5EDD8
Body text on dark. Card surfaces.
Cream
#FBF6EC
Primary page background. Never pure white.
Canopy
#2A4A35
Contextual accent. Estate story backgrounds.
Usage rule: ICM never uses pure black (#000) or pure white (#FFF). All surfaces use Ink or Cream. This gives the palette warmth and prevents the clinical feeling of default web design.
Dark mode (app default): Bark and Ink backgrounds with Parchment text and Copper metadata. This makes data feel premium — like looking at a well-designed financial instrument, not a classifieds listing.
05
Typography
Three typefaces. Each with a distinct job. Nothing else.
Type System — Live Specimen
Lora — Display & Headlines
Estate stories, section titles, hero headlines in italic
DISPLAY / HEADINGS — Lora 600–700. Italic for subheadlines and pull quotes.
Liberation Serif carries the weight of long-form reading. It has the gravity of old trade documents and the warmth of handwritten correspondence. Use for all body copy, descriptions, estate narratives, and platform content — wherever a human is reading at length.
BODY — Liberation Serif Regular, 17–18px / 1.8 line-height.
DATA — Liberation Mono, all data labels, lot numbers, coordinates, technical metadata, timestamps. Never used for prose.
Script integration: Regional script names (ಕೊಡಗು for Kodagu, கோடைக்கானல் for Kodaikanal, అరకు for Araku) appear alongside English in estate listings. This is not decoration — it is a statement that ICM belongs to origin, not just to English-speaking buyers.
06
The Listing Card
If Subko's brand unit is the label, ICM's brand unit is the listing card. Every lot deserves certificate-of-provenance treatment.
Sample Listing Card
Green Coffee · Arabica · Karnataka
Ratnagiri Estate
Chikkamagaluru, 980 MASL
Process
Anaerobic Natural
Varietal
S795
Harvest
Nov 2024
Quantity
42 bags
Grade
SCA 86+
Seller
Verified ✓
Every card answers seven questions: What estate? Where? What process? What varietal? How much? What grade? At what price?
The ICM logo appears small in the card header as a trust mark — signalling this listing has been admitted to the platform and the seller is verified.
07
Photography Direction
Documentary, not lifestyle. The chain stops at the green bean. The story lives in the process.
Plucking & Sorting
Fermentation & Washing
Drying & Milling
Correct Photography
Hands holding cherries — documentary honesty, not styled
Drying beds with workers — real process, real people
Estate landscape — geography that makes the coffee
Sorting tables, hulling machines — infrastructure of trade
Faces showing dignity and confidence, not poverty or exoticism
Natural light, slightly desaturated — feels like a verified record
Bags of green beans being weighed and loaded
Avoid
Cups of coffee, lattes, roasted beans — ICM never reaches that far
Café interiors or barista shots
Over-warm, heavily filtered Instagram images
Stock photography — every image must be from Indian estates
Poverty photography — do not use struggle as aesthetic
Generic "happy farmer" posed shots
Western specialty coffee visual language
Drone landscapes that make people invisible
08
Voice & Tone
Precise but warm. The voice of a knowledgeable peer, not a salesperson or a bureaucrat.
Short sentences that carry weight. ICM is a platform for professionals. They do not need hand-holding copy.
Specificity over adjectives. "1020 MASL, S795 varietal, 84 SCA score" is better than "exceptional high-altitude Arabica with remarkable complexity."
Origin pride without performance. Expressed through facts and stories, not superlatives.
Equal dignity for all four stakeholders. The tribal grower in Andhra Pradesh and the specialty roaster in Bombay deserve the same voice.
Not this
"Discover the world of premium Indian green coffee. Connect with amazing farmers and source incredible exotic single-origin beans from the lush hills of India!"
This
"India grows more coffee than most people know. ICM puts every estate, every lot, and every price on the same transparent platform."
Not this
"Our platform leverages cutting-edge technology to optimize your supply chain and maximize ROI across your green coffee procurement strategy."
This
"List your lot. Set your price. Trade directly. No middlemen, no guesswork, no opaque pricing."
Not this
"The Ramakrishna family has been growing coffee in the beautiful misty hills of Coorg for generations, crafting each bean with love and dedication."
This
"Ramakrishna Estate, Coorg. Fourth generation. 48 acres at 1,100 MASL. Natural process, hand-sorted. First year on ICM."
09
Content Pillars
Six distinct content types. Each with its own visual treatment and purpose.
01
Estate Stories
Long-form profiles — geography, process, people. The documentary anchor.
→ "Kerehaklu Estate: 5 generations, 400 acres — what natural processing does to S795 at 1,200 MASL"
02
The Process Chain
Visual documentation from plucking to sack. Araku 19/91 as the model. No roasting, no brewing.
→ "6-stage visual record from a Chikkamagaluru estate — cherry to bag"
03
Market Intelligence
Price trends, lot availability, seasonal patterns. ICM as the informed voice of Indian green coffee.
→ "Monsoon arrivals 2024: Arabica specialty lots showing 12% premium vs last season"
04
Grower Voices
Short-form audio/video. Growers, curers, traders speaking about their craft. Inspired by So,Coffee model.
→ "Shantamma, curer, Coorg: 22 years washing beans. First year on ICM."
05
Roaster Spotlights
How roasters source on ICM. Criteria, discoveries, direct relationships built.
→ "How a Hyderabad roaster found a Wayanad natural via ICM that changed their espresso"
06
Origin Pride
India's coffee geography, history, and uniqueness. The case for global recognition.
→ "India is the world's only producer of both shade-grown and monsooned coffees."
10
UI Design Principles
Eight principles governing every screen in the app and website.
Data is the hero, not decoration
Lot number, price, origin, quantity — never secondary to aesthetics. The design serves the data.
Trust signals must be visible without being asked for
Verification badges, quality grades, transaction history, seller ratings — at listing level, not buried in a profile.
Onboarding for a Coorg farmer ≠ onboarding for a Bombay roaster
Four stakeholder types with different literacy, language, and trust levels. Role-specific flows. Always.
Dark mode is primary, not secondary
App defaults dark. Bark and Ink backgrounds make data feel premium — Bloomberg terminal aesthetic.
Monospace type signals documentation
All structured data — lot numbers, coordinates, altitude, SCA scores, timestamps — uses Liberation Mono. A signal: this is a record, not marketing.
Regional scripts are not an afterthought
Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu appear in estate listings wherever the region has a script version. Respect coded into the product.
Confirmation before large transactions, summary before listing, identity verification — these feel like care, not inconvenience.
11
Logo Geometry & Guidelines
The ICM wordmark is a bespoke serif identity rooted in four distinct zones. These guidelines govern how it is used, protected, and reproduced across all touchpoints.
The ICM logo is not a typeface. It is a custom-drawn identity mark — 22 individual vector paths forming a unified wordmark system with an embedded emblem. It cannot be recreated by setting text in any font. The master SVG file is the only authoritative source.
11aLogo Anatomy & Construction
The logo is composed of four distinct zones arranged vertically within a 324 × 353 pt canvas. Each zone has a specific function and visual weight.
ZONE A
ZONE B
ZONE C
ZONE D
Zone A
Top Emblem
Coffee bean icon with bilateral leaf ornaments. Serves as the standalone symbol mark when full wordmark is too large.
Canvas: 324 × ~97 pt · 22 paths total in zone
Zone B
Radiating Wing Ornaments
Bilateral decorative arcs expanding from the bean. Suggest the ripple of trade routes and the branching of the supply chain.
Symmetric across vertical axis · mirror paths
Zone C
Primary Wordmark
The name "Indian Coffee Mart" in a custom-drawn refined serif. The primary identifying text. Never modified.
Custom drawn — not a system font
Zone D
Secondary Wordmark
Secondary descriptor / tagline in smaller classical serif. Provides full brand identification at larger sizes.
Can be omitted below 48px height
Proportions & Dimensions
Full width
324 pt · Aspect ratio 0.918 : 1 (W:H)
Full height
353 pt total canvas
Zone A height
~97 pt (27.5%)
Zone B height
~79 pt (22.4%)
Zone C height
~82 pt (23.2%)
Zone D height
~95 pt (26.9%)
Canvas324 × 353 pt
Aspect ratioW : H = 0.92 : 1
Total paths22 vectors
SymmetryBilateral (Zones A & B)
Master fileGroup_105101.svg
Fill colour#202020 (master)
11bClear Space & Minimum Size
The logo requires protected clear space on all four sides. This space is defined as 1× the height of Zone A (the top emblem) — approximately equal to the cap-height of the primary wordmark. No other graphic element, text, or image edge may enter this zone.
× = Zone A height ≈ 0.27× logo height
× clear space× clear space× clear space× clear space
Dashed line = minimum exclusion zone boundary
Minimum Reproduction Sizes
Use Case
Min Width
Min Height
Zones Visible
Notes
Full wordmark — print
25mm
27mm
A + B + C + D
All four zones legible
Full wordmark — digital
96px
105px
A + B + C + D
Zone D visible but small
Wordmark without Zone D
64px
70px
A + B + C
Drop Zone D below 70px height
Emblem only (Zone A)
24px
24px
A only
Favicon, app icon, listing card badge
Nav / header
48px
52px
A + B + C
Standard nav usage
Business card / letterhead
30mm
33mm
A + B + C + D
Full identity expression preferred
Jute bag / merchandise
60mm
65mm
A + B + C + D
Embroidered: Zone B may simplify
11cApproved Colour Variants & Background Usage
The ICM logo has three approved colour variants. No other fill colours are permitted. The variant used must meet a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 against its background for digital applications, and 3:1 for large display use.
Primary Dark
#202020
Use on: Cream, Parchment, Fog, white backgrounds. Default for print and light-background digital.
Parchment
#F5EDD8
Use on: Bark, Ink, Canopy, dark photo backgrounds. Default for dark-mode app and hero areas.
Copper Accent
#B87333
Use on: Ink backgrounds only. Sparingly — TOC headers, estate branding, premium collateral. Never on light backgrounds.
Background Compatibility Matrix
On Ink #1C1208
✓ Approved — Parchment variant
On Bark #3D2010
✓ Approved — Parchment variant
On Cream #FBF6EC
✓ Approved — Dark variant
On Parchment #F5EDD8
✓ Approved — Dark variant
On Canopy #2A4A35
✓ Approved — Parchment variant
On Copper #B87333
⚠ Caution — contrast 2.9:1
On Pure White
⚠ Permitted — but avoid. Use Cream instead.
On Harvest #D4956A
✕ Not approved — insufficient contrast
11dLogo Misuse — What Never to Do
The integrity of the ICM logo depends on consistent, exact reproduction. The following eight misuses are explicitly prohibited across all touchpoints — digital, print, merchandise, and partnership materials.
✕ Prohibited
Do not distort or stretch proportions
✕ Prohibited
Do not rotate or tilt the wordmark
✕ Prohibited
Do not use on low-contrast backgrounds
✕ Prohibited
Do not apply drop shadows or glows
✕ Prohibited
Do not use outline/stroke-only versions
✕ Prohibited
Do not apply gradients or multi-colour fills
✕ Prohibited
Do not place on patterned or busy backgrounds
INDIAN
COFFEE MART
✕ Prohibited
Do not recreate or approximate the logo in type
11eLogo in Context — Application Examples
The following examples show the logo in its primary contexts across the ICM platform and identity system. Each application uses the correct variant, scale, and clear space as defined in sections 11b and 11c.
When the logo must appear smaller than 48px width, the Zone A emblem (coffee bean + leaf ornaments) can be used as a standalone icon mark. This is appropriate for favicons, app icons, notification badges, and listing card stamps.
64 × 64px App icon
32 × 32px Favicon
24 × 24px Badge
Note
Below 32px, only Zone A (the top coffee bean emblem) should be used. The wordmark zones become illegible and must not be included. Request the standalone emblem crop from the design team.
File Format Reference
Format
Use Case
Variant Available
Notes
.SVG
Web, app, all digital UI
All three colour variants
Master format. Always use SVG over PNG for digital.
.PNG (2× & 3×)
Email signatures, social, slides
Dark, Parchment
Min 300px width at 1×. Export from master SVG.
.PDF / .EPS
Print — business cards, signage, packaging
Dark, Parchment, Copper
Vector. CMYK conversion required for offset print.
.AI (Illustrator)
Design team working files only
All variants
Do not share externally. Use PDF/SVG for vendors.
Embroidery DST
Merchandise, uniforms, jute bags
Single colour only
Zone B ornaments may be simplified. Min 60mm width.
