Krugels
Branding
Web Design
Freelance
Client
Krugels
My Role
Brand Design & Visual Consultant
Timeline
2024 – Ongoing
What
A brand identity refresh and new website for Krugels, a hospitality group spanning catering, a café, and a coffee bar — unifying three distinct outlets under one cohesive visual language, built on Framer.
Why
The existing identity felt dated and didn’t reflect the quality or character of the brand. Beyond a visual refresh, the challenge was joining three separate outlets into one coherent brand family without flattening what makes each one distinct.
How
Ongoing on-site consulting paired with visual design work — observing guests directly while working shifts across all three outlets, researching how high-end hospitality brands build appeal for a more discerning audience, then developing a shared design language that unifies the subbrands through consistency while keeping each distinct through color and logo.
Research
Research happened on the floor, not just at the desk — observing Catering, Coffee-Bar, and LadenCafé customers directly while working shifts, alongside a look at how high-end culinary brands position themselves for a more discerning audience. That work surfaced a real mismatch: since Krugels took over the LadenCafé, its customer base didn’t line up with the intended target group — a signal that the fix needed to go beyond the logo, into the café’s social media presence and its physical space.
Insights
The core challenge was consistency without sameness — each outlet needed to read as part of one family while keeping its own identity through color and mark. Running underneath all three: a shared sense of hygge, built to feel genuinely warm and welcoming rather than aspirational or polished-for-show, paired with a traditional sensibility that signals craft and know-how over passing trends.
Design
The result is a unified visual system expressed differently across each outlet — distinct colors and logos for Catering, Coffee-Bar, and LadenCafé, brought together under one roof on a new Framer-built site. LandLoft and LabSaal are the next additions to bring into the same system as the brand grows.
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