Ricci Basement Roasters
Artisan mail-order coffee built for office life.
Brand Systems Design
2025
Product, Positioning & Problem
Ricci Basement Roasters is a mail-order artisan coffee brand, built by a former corporate creative who started roasting coffee as a hobby. When the demand for his coffee outgrew his basement, he decided to scale it into a business.
The founder, Enzo, took inspiration from his time being a tired professional in the corporate world, and positioned his coffee as artisan-quality, locally-roasted, and energy-boosting. So, he made plainly good coffee meant for office-level coffee machines.
When I started on this project, Ricci was at that scale point. They just bought a roastery, and needed some guidance on how to set themselves up for success.
My Role & Contributions
I was the brand systems designer on this project. I ran discovery, designed the brand identity, defined a streamlined system bridging their existing offer and future marketing, and helped them roll it out one piece at a time.
Key Design Decisions
What made Ricci work before it was named and branded is that it had soul. Even without a brand, people connected with the coffee because of the person and quality behind it.
That meant when branding Ricci as more than a hobby project, we absolutely couldn't lose that soul — so instead of opting for custom cups, branded bags, and a storefront, we opted for blank cups hand-stamped with their logo, resealable paper bags, and a personal courier for deliveries. This preserved their personable core, helped them speak to the broader community, and built on top of existing equity.
When deciding on a way to announce their new venture, we decided to come up with a marketing concept that stayed true to their community-driven values and made an impact. The result of that was Slump Killer — after making some sample cups and a small bag of grounds, they'd deliver it to well-known local corporate offices. Completely unannounced. No sales pitch, no notice. Just a generous offer and a card explaining the mission. This helped them quickly change their perception from "the coffee Enzo roasts in his basement" to "delicious ass coffee that I can put in my conference room as a conversation starter".
The Outcome
Ricci is still early days, but it now has a guide for the journey. This project defined Ricci for the first time — and gave them a mission, a framework for the future, and a way to put themselves out in the community in a new capacity.
