The Art of Coffee - with Marley Soden

Meet lettering artist Marley Soden, who recently used her meticulous food typography skills to create a dreamy morning coffee tableau for Café.

The Art of Lettering

Marley Soden’s interest in the art of letters began in elementary school, when she’d spend hours drawing bubble letters on notebooks. Little did she know, this artistic obsession would one day merge with her love of cooking, resulting in the perfect creative outlet: food lettering.

"It wasn't until fairly recently that I had the idea of combining the two things I'm most passionate about: lettering and food," Soden says. "I think it's such an unexpected art form that people can't help but stop scrolling to have a look."

Soden studied graphic design in college, where she excelled at illustration and typography, eventually finding a niche in the art of hand lettering. "But it wasn't until after college that I started to hit my stride and gain some confidence with my art that I knew for sure this is what I'm meant to do," she says.

These days, Soden offers a range of artistic services, including digital illustration, murals, and tactile and food lettering. It’s the latter art form that captured the attention of Café Appliances, leading to a creative partnership with the North Carolina-based artist.

Creating the Café Artwork

"I am a huge home décor nerd, so I’ve been following along with Café for a long time," she says. "I’m obsessed with their aesthetic of sleek minimalism, so when they reached out to me, I was nerding out for sure."

For Café, Soden created fun content to support the brand’s new coffee and espresso makers with a morning coffee tableau featuring fresh-brewed joe, cream, sugar and other accoutrements. Soden used ground coffee to create the Café logo, and the iconic accent mark above the "e" is made with a copper glitter gradient.

The food lettering process begins with a basic sketch, which is when Soden plans lettering style, prop placement and composition. From there, she tests out materials and troubleshoots any challenges. With the Café shoot, it took her "several Target runs" to get a ground coffee with just the right color and coarseness to capture the perfect light. (She settled on a medium roast with a coarser blend.)

Once her trials are done, it’s time to shoot – the most time-consuming part of the process. Depending on the size and complexity of the design, the average food lettering piece will take two to eight hours, which Soden creates using basic tools like paint brushes, toothpicks and Q-tips to brush everything into place. "Food lettering is a tedious process," she says, "but it's so worth it in the end."

The Inspiration

For this Café commission, Soden was inspired by the brand’s sleek, minimalist design.

"I wanted to make sure I kept that same aesthetic," she says. "I chose a light background with simple white dishes and linens to mirror that classic Café style. I also wanted it to look like a real table setting, so I included soft morning light, intentionally spilled coffee beans and a slightly messy setting to give the piece a lived-in look. The glitter in the accent feels like the perfect representation of the metal accents Café uses in their appliances."

Soden describes herself as "1,000% a foodie," and that includes an appreciation of quality coffee. That’s why she was thrilled when Café gifted her a Specialty Drip Coffee Maker at the culmination of her inaugural project for them.

"It now sits on my kitchen counter, and literally every guest who comes to my house stops in their tracks to look at it. It is perhaps the most gorgeous thing I'll ever own!"