CBI Approved — Logo Files & Usage

The CBI Approved marks, and how to use them. If your business is on one of our approved lists, the mark below is yours to use — on your website, your socials, your window and your packaging. There is nothing to pay and nothing to sign.

This page is public on purpose. Approved businesses need to be able to find their files years after the welcome email has been deleted, so the address never changes and nothing is locked behind a login. What stops the mark being misused is not a password — it is the lists themselves. Roasters, cafés and other businesses serving coffee and partners are published, anyone can check them, and a business using the mark without being on one is misrepresenting itself.

What the mark actually stands behind is published too, line by line: the pledge every approved business made.

Approved Roaster

Download the Approved Roaster pack — print files, web files and the usage guide.

Approved Coffee

For businesses that serve coffee rather than roast it — a café, a bakery, a restaurant, a bookshop, a corner store. The mark names the coffee rather than the room, so it fits all of them.

Download the Approved Coffee pack — print files, web files and the usage guide.

Approved Partner

Download the Approved Partner pack — print files, web files and the usage guide.

Your window stickers

Every approved location gets two stickers in the post, at our cost, wherever you are: the round seal for the glass, and a square one carrying a QR code that takes a passer-by straight to everything you promised. They go on the outside of the window. Want more than two — for a second door, a van, a market stall? Email learn@canadianbaristainstitute.com and we will send them.

Which mark, and where

The seal is the default. It works on a coffee bag, on window and door glass, in a website footer and as a social profile image. Its smallest size is 20 mm wide in print, or 100 px on screen.

The horizontal lockup is for places with width but little height — a bag's base strip, a header or footer bar, an email signature. Its smallest size is 50 mm wide in print, or 240 px on screen.

Those minimums are measured rather than estimated. Both marks were rendered at print resolution and checked on an absorbent stock with ink spread applied. Below about 25 mm the fine lettering around the seal reads as texture rather than words — that is expected, and the shield and the category stay legible well below it.

On coffee bags

The bag is where this mark does the most work. It travels, it sits on a shelf beside coffee that has met no standard at all, and it tells whoever picks it up exactly what they are holding. You are welcome to put it on every bag you print.

Use the files in the pack's print folder, never the web files. A bag printer asking for "the vector" means the PDF or EPS — both have the type converted to outlines, so nothing shifts and no font is needed at their end, and both are one-colour greyscale so they separate to the black plate alone rather than building a four-colour black.

Kraft, matte laminate and uncoated stocks spread fine strokes slightly. If you are printing below 25 mm on an absorbent stock, or printing flexo, ask your printer for a proof before the run.

The basics

Clear space. Leave a margin on all four sides equal to one tenth of the mark's width. Nothing comes inside it — no type, no rule, no edge of the bag.

Colour. One colour. The black artwork is #1a1a1a, deliberately not pure black, so it sits with printed photography rather than jumping out of it. On anything dark, use the reversed file rather than inverting the black one. On a photograph or a busy pattern, put the mark on a plain panel.

Backgrounds. Every file is transparent. The mark carries no white box with it, so on a kraft bag the kraft shows through rather than a white disc appearing behind the seal. That is also why the black files disappear on a dark background — use the reversed version there.

The reversed files look blank when you open them. That is correct — white artwork on no background, which is exactly what a printer or designer needs. Each pack's preview folder shows both marks in place.

Building a web page? Each pack includes a currentcolor SVG, which takes its colour from the CSS around it. One file covers a light and a dark theme.

Please don't

• Recolour it, add a gradient, outline it, or apply a shadow
• Stretch, squash, rotate or tilt it
• Rebuild it, re-set the type, or lift the shield out and use it on its own
• Place it so it reads as your own mark, or lock it up with your logo as a single unit
• Use it to imply we endorse anything beyond coffee freshness, sourcing, quality and service

If your approval ends

Stop applying the mark to new artwork and new print runs. Bags already printed may be sold through — we will not ask you to destroy stock. Please remove it from your website and social profiles within a reasonable time.

Packaging has a long lead time and a longer tail, and we would rather state that plainly than have a cautious roaster hesitate to commit the mark to a bag at all.

The full guide

Every pack contains it, and it is also here on its own: the CBI Approved mark usage guide (PDF, two pages). Send it to your designer or your printer along with the files.

Not approved yet?

Approval is free, there is nothing to buy, and we take no payment, commission or sponsorship for a place on any list. Read the standards and apply.

Need a format that isn't in the pack — a different file type, a one-colour spot version, a specific size? Email learn@canadianbaristainstitute.com and we will make it.