Addressing the shift of traditional banking toward virtual offerings, Capital One Cafés reimagine the purpose of a bank's physical location.

M-O designers refreshed brand guidelines, signage, and created custom installations in Café locations nationwide.

Café branding embraces Capital One's expanded brand color palette with an energetic accent blue.

Collective Cafés are elevated flagship locations that act as true destinations within their neighborhoods.

Brand activations further connect banking and lifestyle by embedding visual marketing components in the space.

Capital One Cafés

M-O worked with Capital One to update the Brand Kit of Parts and evolve the look and feel of their Capital One Cafés. Addressing the growing shift of traditional banking toward virtual offerings, Capital One Cafés reimagine the purpose of a bank’s physical location. The core concept of the Café is to provide a welcoming space that includes a coffee bar and areas to work or relax. While each café has its own local identity, they all have a connection with the Capital One brand.

The first phase of work was to update existing cafés in Detroit, San Jose, and Los Angeles. Capital One wanted to distinguish their existing café branding from their dedicated bank locations. M-O designers worked with the Capital One team to update signage, implement branded installations, and refresh the brand’s approach to color and material.

For the Next Gen Cafés that were new to market in Minneapolis and Columbus, Capital One shifted focus toward an emphasis on wellness. With relatively minimal interiors, the spaces are designed to feel grounded and calm. Taking cues from the architecture, the signage and installations feature rounded edges, soft geometry, clean lines and a neutral material and color palette. A further evolution of the café brand took shape in larger spaces known as Collective Cafés. These cafés are located on prominent corners in Boston and in Midtown Manhattan. Collective Cafés utilize the core Brand Kit of Parts and principles, but are elevated as flagship locations.

In every location, the Capital One Café Manifesto was a crucial part of the messaging strategy and was integrated with flexibility depending on the café design. In one location, the manifesto was presented as a sculptural text installation suspended from the ceiling. The M-O team created additional activations featuring a curated collection of ceramics, an illustrated mural, and an installation of colorful luggage tags— a nod to Capital One’s robust travel rewards.

Responding to goals that gradually evolved and shifted, M-O designers exercised their creativity and agility to deliver dynamic and fresh ideas that could tie together the past and future of the Capital One Café brand. The result is a subtle, sophisticated, and seamless take on what banking can be in the 21st century.