Costa Coffee
Social Playbook
A 91-page brand governance system that defined how a complex new visual identity should behave across 14 asset categories and every major social platform.
the brief
Costa Coffee had just completed a full rebrand. The new identity was expressive — a wide colour palette, strong typography, and a signature wave motif. The problem: no rules existed for how any of it should work in practice. Without clear governance, the same brand would look like different brands depending on who was executing it.
what I did
Costa's new identity had one problem: the wave. It was the brand's most powerful element and, unconstrained, it swallowed every layout. I wrote the rules that keep it present without letting it dominate, then built them into a 91-page playbook covering 14 categories and an After Effects template system where the wave's movement is fixed, not open to interpretation.
scope & scale
91
Pages
14
Asset categories, from logo and colour to influencer content and collaboration formats
2
Motion formats (1×1, 9×16) in a template system with locked wave movement
Solo
From brief to handoff
the result
Costa's FMCG team ran the live Frappélists summer campaign across every social platform without returning to the agency for guidance.
