Yeoyu

Yeoyu was born out of the near burn-out that brothers Jason and Justin Yang felt in the midst of the pandemic and a shift to a life in lockdown. When work and rest existed in the same space, both brothers felt the exhaustion within and needed to find a way to reset and change their daily pace each morning. They discovered the Korean concept of yeoyu (여유), a phrase that is often hard to translate, but essentially means to slow down, be unbounded and relaxed, to be oneself. Pour-over coffee happens to be their way of experiencing yeoyu.

 

 

여 (yeo | 余) — quiet abundance
유 (yu | 裕) — a sense of ease

 

 

Our team had the opportunity to work with Jason, Justin and their long-time friend Peter Jahn on the brand identity for Yeoyu, their passion project that brings together their love of coffee and a daily necessity to slow down. The coffee dripper is the accumulation of their ideas into one tangible offering to the world.

Design

During our early exploration, we took inspiration from historic Korean vessels like the moon vase, taking note of its round form that evoked a sense of calm and ease. We applied the same principles of rounded corners (a way of softening) to create a visual system of blocks—blocks being the segments of our day, and the rounded corners as moments of calm, simple actions that can transform the day.

The Yeoyu wordmark is set in ABC Walter Neue and paired with Noto Sans CJK for the Hangul characters 여유. Including the Hangul characters was a deliberate and collaborative decision as we wanted the wordmark and brand to retain its Korean heritage. Our team understood early on that the coffee dripper would be made in stainless steel with a sandblasted finish. We chose to use a warm sans serif for the wordmark as a reflection of the neutral and reductive nature of the dripper.

While the Yeoyu brand is currently focused solely on the coffee dripper, our team developed additional brand assets to help explore the potential growth of the brand in the future.