Daylight Mind Coffee Company

An oceanside restaurant & coffee house in the heart of Kona, HI. Join us for brunch & dinner or just a coffee overlooking the ocean! The idea for Daylight Mind was born in the head of one person. However, as new partners joined the party, the challenge of integrating each new personality and vision for the company grew in complexity. Establishing and sticking to an identity, generating a name, and developing a logo has been a rewarding process for us, even when challenging. We value our identity as a company and we’ve found a way to express the passion that drives all of us. We want to share the insight that led us to our name with you. Our identity grows from the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. We take from those time periods the quest for knowledge and the use of logic and science to better understand the world. We are adventurers, exploring the world, gathering data, and pushing the limits of what we thought we knew. The heroes of this time period were not warriors but philosopher-scientists challenging the status quo. These intellectual revolutions followed the great Age of Discovery, when the Western powers set out upon the seas to explore the world and find sea-routes to the spice producing countries. While these explorations “discovered” the world and helped complete the maps, explorers and the countries backing them didn’t always act benevolently, generously, or with good intentions. We don’t condone those dark actions; yet, we do accept them as an historical truth. We take for ourselves from this complex legacy the drive to seek out the unknown and explore the vastness of what we don’t understand. Far removed from those Western powers, a small archipelago in the middle of the Pacific had a flourishing population and rich culture. Those people were descendents of Polynesian explorers, who centuries before had set out on outrigger sailing vessels, using the positions of the sun and the stars, and the winds and the currents, to navigate the expanse of the ocean. Those ‘imi loa, or explorers, also sought to understand the world, developing deep understandings of the natural world that were different from those of the West. Upon these two cultures do we build our identity. Both show the beauty of human achievement and each has something valuable to learn from. Once we understood this, choosing our name, Daylight Mind, wasn’t too difficult. Daylight Mind is the literal translation of the Hawaiian word for enlightenment, na‘auao. Our name weaves together a love of scientific exploration with a deep respect for the wisdom and strength of its Hawaiian roots. Our logo integrates these two sides of our identity. On the left side is a symbol of Western exploration: a compass rose. The right side also is a compass: a star compass that visually represents how the Polynesian voyagers use the rising and setting positions of the sun and the stars to guide their canoes on the ocean. This star compass is not stylized, though; the positions of the compass correspond to actual stars that rise in the night sky before our storefront in Kailua-Kona. We are always seeking out new and wonderful things on the horizon. We are always ready to face the challenge of the unknown. All the while, we draw upon the cultures and ideals of our past and present to keep us true. We look forward to meeting and welcoming you into our Daylight Mind Coffee Company ‘ohana! na'auao - nvs. Learned, enlightened, intelligent, wise; learning, knowledge, wisdom, science. Lit., daylight mind.