YAFA – Building a Contemporary Egyptian Café Brand Identity

Yafa is a contemporary Egyptian coffee shop located in Assiut, Egypt, built around coffee, people, nostalgia, and everyday moments.

The challenge was to create a distinctive Egyptian identity with a clear personality, without relying on the visual clichés and traditional references often associated with Egyptian branding.

Instead of translating the past literally, we focused on translating the feeling behind it into a contemporary visual language. The idea was to create a brand that feels familiar and emotionally connected, while still looking fresh, confident, and relevant today.

The identity was developed through a combination of thoughtful typography, warm and grounded colors, tactile materials, human-centered photography, packaging, graphic elements, and environmental applications.

Every part of the identity was designed to work as part of one consistent experience — from the logo and typography to the coffee cups, packaging, printed materials, and the physical café environment.

Most importantly, YAFA is not a fictional concept. It is a real café that exists physically in Assiut, Egypt, allowing the identity to move beyond the screen and become part of a real place and real everyday experiences.

The result is a visual identity that carries a familiar feeling through a new language.

Old Feeling. New Language.

Yafa — a place to be.