Project Overview

Type: Brand and experience recreation.
Brand: Café Pukolín.
Role: Brand Strategy, Creative Direction & Experience Development.
Scope: Concept development, positioning, audience definition, community strategy, loyalty system, visual direction, and digital content.

Café Pukolín is a fictional café concept created to reinterpret systems, strategies, and community dynamics previously developed for an independent brand, while protecting the original project’s identity.

The concept brings those learnings into a specialty café centered on comfort, connection, and community, combining brand identity, experience, content, and loyalty within one cohesive system.

Challenge:
The challenge was to translate a proven strategic framework into a new category, rethinking the audience, identity, product, and experience while preserving its core logic and building a relationship beyond the transaction.

Café Pukolín grew from an idea that runs through several of my personal projects: creating a workspace that feels like a small oasis within a fast-paced routine. Calm, comfort, and the freedom to stay are not secondary details, but part of the core experience.

The concept translates that philosophy into a specialty café where product, physical space, brand identity, and community exist within the same system. It is designed as a place people can visit not only to consume, but also to rest, work, meet, or simply spend time.

Plushies became the main differentiator, inspired by real behaviors within K-pop and other fandom communities, where characters and mascots are often brought to cafés, events, and gatherings as part of the social experience. From that came the central idea: “A place where plushies bring their humans to rest and recharge.”

The plushies act as characters within the brand world, bringing humor, familiarity, and companionship to the experience. Pukolín, the cat at the center of the identity, anchors that universe while leaving room for new characters, seasonal content, and collaborations.

The result is a warm and playful concept designed for young adults: recognizably cute, but never childish, with calm and community at its core.

Concept

The loyalty system rewards frequency and participation, not just spending, using Pukolín’s characters and brand world to make the program feel like part of the experience rather than a separate points system.

Seasonal content and collaborations keep the concept fresh while preserving a consistent core identity.

Estrategia creativa

The strategy is built around three goals: participation, repeat visits, and community. Each touchpoint gives people a reason to engage with the brand beyond a single visit.

Digital content extends the physical café experience through collaborative playlists, polls, and recurring activations that keep the community involved between visits.

Visual References

Visual Direction

Moodboard

Café Pukolín’s visual direction combines a warm, playful aesthetic with a more grounded palette inspired by coffee and cozy spaces, keeping the brand cute without making it feel childish.

Oranges, creams, and browns form the core palette, creating consistency across social media, printed materials, and future in-store applications.

Pukolín, the cat, is the central character and one of the brand’s most recognizable elements. His recurring presence adds humor, personality, and familiarity without relying on the logo in every piece.

The system is designed to evolve without losing its identity. Pukolín can adapt to seasons, products, situations, and collaborations, while changes in color, illustration, and secondary elements keep the communication fresh throughout the year.

Expected Impact

The concept aims to build a brand that encourages an ongoing relationship with its audience through a recognizable experience that goes beyond a single purchase.

By connecting identity, space, content, music, participation, and loyalty within one system, Pukolín turns each interaction into an opportunity to strengthen recognition, belonging, and brand connection.

Expected Outcomes

• Encourage repeat visits through experiences and activations that give people reasons to return.

• Strengthen brand recognition through a consistent visual and narrative system.

• Generate organic participation both in-store and across digital channels.

• Build a community around shared interests, codes, and experiences.

• Maintain a flexible system that can adapt to seasons, collaborations, and new activations without losing its identity.

Location

Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Email

ngrancetellechea@gmail.com