I’m not a coffee snob (or anything even close to that). When I buy coffee, I usually just get drip (or a double shot Americano when in Europe) and usually take it black because it saves time. I think that coffee tastes disgusting, though I drink a lot of it primarily for its caffeinated properties. Because of this, when I buy coffee, I generally select coffee shops based on things such as branding rather than what it “tastes” like. I will admit that I appreciate some good visual design when it comes to coffee cups (and almost everything else). There are a lot of ’em here in the city. Within a one block radius of my office there are at least 3 non-chain coffee joints. In that same radius there are probably 5-7 chain locations (Starbucks/Dunkin/Coffee Bean). I find myself patronizing the non-chain brands almost exclusively, and a lot of it is based on branding (i.e. the visual aesthetic of the disposable cups/sleeves). My friends at Gear Patrol, published an awesome little blurb this week visually cataloging some of the cups that can be obtained around NYC. I thought it was such a cool idea that I’m sharing it here. There are a few others that I would have included in the image had I been creative enough to come up with this idea. But I think that they chose a good cross-section. Check out the original piece over here.

[Photo: Henry Phillips]