Fresh Kaufee Sprudge
The coffee shop has always been one of the great incubators for artist-types. Itโ€™s a home base for creative nomads, where those not shackled to desk jobs go to sketch, write, or just ideate into leather-bound notepads, propped up only by a cup of coffee and, depending on your location and era, a pack of cigarettes. With artists having spentย so much time inside those hallowed walls, it was inevitable thatย coffee wouldย seep into their creative consciousnesses. Like one hand drawing another hand drawing that first hand holding a demitasse, coffee has become both the source and subject matter of many an artistโ€™s creative energy. One such expression of this Escherian synergy is Fresh Kaufee, the apparel company from graphic designer/typographer/illustrator extraordinaire Lenworth McIntosh, who prefers, incidentally, to go by Joonbug, or Joon. Like the name implies, Fresh Kaufee draws heavily from its caffeinated muse, and Joonbugย infuses coffee into his aesthetic in creative new ways.

Fresh Kaufee Sprudge
Photo courtesy Kalan Briggs.

Before aย recent move to San Francisco, Joonbug was a staple at some of Dallasโ€™ best shops, where he could be found working on his โ€œGood Morningโ€ series: a compilation of daily-released sketchesย full of 90โ€™s nostalgiaโ€”8- and 16-bit video game characters, Dragonball Z, Pokemon, etc.โ€”circumscribed by โ€œgood morning to youโ€ penned in his distinct typographical style. If Joon was at a shop, you pretty much knew it was legit. In fact, he can actually be spotted Whereโ€™s Waldo-style in a couple Sprudge articles about shops around Dallas (Hint: the articles are about a pop-up and a permanent cafe, both with a name that rhymes with Soundsbooth).

Fresh Kaufee Sprudge

This involvement in the coffee shop culture is apparent throughout the Fresh Kaufee line, where playful concepts and images represent a more reverent artistic credo. On the roleย coffee plays in his work, Joonbug said, โ€œCoffee feels like a gentlemanโ€™s drink. Itโ€™s classy and relaxed with the utmost confidence. It wakes the body, so why not adapt it to the soul and awaken the inner creativeโ€™s desire to pursue a dream?โ€ Fresh Kaufee finds inspiration in the more than just the Platonic ideal of what coffee can be, but in the physical drink itself. โ€œThe color scheme, the earthtones, they all support my overall style and perception of the world,โ€ said Joon.

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Fresh Kaufee Sprudge

One of theย most noticeable manifestations of this influence is in Fresh Kaufee’s packaging. In keeping with the theme, all shirts are sold in brown, eight-ounce coffee bags with sizeย designations of mild, medium, and bold replacing the more typical descriptors of small, medium, and large. And Fresh Kaufee is a self-professedย โ€œolfactory brand,โ€ appealing to more than just the visual stream to help enhance the experience. โ€œMy graphic design teacher once said itโ€™s best to appeal to as many senses as possible,โ€ Joonbug told me. Asย with a newly opened bag of coffee beans, recently purchased Fresh Kaufee shirts are meant to be smelled in the bag. Itโ€™s not just your mind playing tricks on you; thereโ€™s a pleasant coffee aroma emanating from the package. Itโ€™s the closest experience to ripping into a new bag of coffee since decaf.

fresh kaufee
Image by Jonathan Stafford.

Once unwrapped, theย coffee motif continues in the shirt prints themselves. Thereโ€™s Beanboy, the cloud-riding adolescent crime fighter bringing โ€œcaffeinated justice to evil-doers,โ€ drawn in a style reminiscent of early 1900s advertising cartoons. For the cat fancier (looking at you, Sprudge reader), thereโ€™s the Premium Blend shirt featuring the monocled Sir Leonard Fluffkins III. And thereโ€™s the text-driven Espresso Self shirt, whose simple message succinctly recapitulates Fresh Kaufeeโ€™s ethos: a healthy dose of individuality and a dash of coffee.

The entire Fresh Kaufeeย experience is carefully thoughtย out from start to finish, but beyond the on-point execution, the shirts themselves are just cool as hell. As one who is way too old to be wearing t-shirts as often as I do, I consider myself an expert on the subject, so you can trust me. Theyโ€™re a subtle way of saying, โ€œyeah I identify with coffee culture, but I donโ€™t have to go shouting it from the rooftops. I likesย to keep it cool.โ€ And for all the baristas out there, these shirts also provide the perfect earthy color palette to accentuate the territorial stain of a wild spritz from a renegade espresso stream. Check out more of Joonbug’s illustrations on Instagram @freshkaufee.

Zac Cadwalader is a Sprudge.com staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Photos by Molly DeCoudreaux for Sprudge.com unless otherwise noted.

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