LO X Grind: Made of Strong Stuff
On the go or not, just taking that moment to breathe, sip and continue is the micro break we all need, whatever mood we’re in. – Gem, King of Oaf
How it all came about:
Let’s take it back to summer 2023, a ding is heard from our emails and it’s none other than Grind – “fancy giving our cult coffee tin an Oaf spin?”. To say we were buzzing (pardon the pun) would be an understatement as we’ve long admired their work and responsible approach to business. Along with being B-corp certified, they also run the Better Coffee Foundation® which aims to undo the damage created by the coffee industry.
Over a few chats and many cups of coffee we developed some initial concepts for the infamous tin.
We started to think about what coffee represents to the Oaf team, and in short, it’s a daily ritual. It’s that moment of calm and routine to ground you, whatever mood you’re in. So, with this collaboration we thought it was a good time to show appreciation of life’s good days and bad days, by using our Happy Sad graphic that is loved by you lot. Embracing the daily emotional rollercoaster, the print appears on a Grind tin, mug, socks, and long-sleeved tee.
Both Grind and Lazy Oaf are still independently owned and have weathered various storms (hello global pandemics and warehouse fires) so we wanted to capture this within the product. We landed on ‘Made of Strong Stuff’ to represent two grass root East London brands joining forces, as well as that helpful kick coffee gives to fuel our creative endeavours.
When it came to the campaign, we wanted the images to represent our partnership. So what better way to do that than to call upon team members of LO and Grind, and take ‘em for a cold-water dip. Ella and Dayna from Oaf joined Nils, Meg and Callum from Grind for a ‘refreshing’ dip in the English Channel. Nothing says ‘Made of Strong Stuff’ quite like a dip in single digit water, does it?
The day was much like the rest of the project, full of laughs, lots of coffee and, by some kind of miracle, lots of sunny rays.
This is a limited edition collaboration available exclusively through grind.co.uk, plus you can get a FREE Lazy Oaf X Grind tin when you sign up to their coffee subscription service here.
