City's celebrities feature on coffee cups

That is the message that social establishment Canvas Coffee is getting across to their customers.

Based in Portsmouth and Southsea Station, the award-winning coffee shop has taken to displaying the faces of celebrities with a Portsmouth connection on their cups.

The work is being done in collaboration with local design agency I Love Dust, a globally-recognised brand that has previously worked closely with companies such as Nike.

Owner Pravin Islam believed that the work they had done would really help to promote the coffee shop and the city.

He explained: ‘We have been running for about three years now and we have customers who work for the design company I Love Dust.

‘They have done a load of work for big companies and around 18 months ago they decided to help us out with some rebranding.’

Pravin said that it was I Love Dust who initially came up with the idea of putting celebrity faces on to the coffe cups.

He explained: ‘It was their idea to look into the history of Portsmouth.

‘I did a bit of research and it turns out that a lot of celebrities have some sort of affiliation with the city, which was fascinating to research and find out about.’

Celebrities featured on the cups so far include Arnold Schwarzenegger and Peter Sellers.

Now they have been joined by Paralympic medallist Lauren Steadman.

Lauren won a silver medal at the Paralympic Games in Rio last year, competing in the paratriathlon.

Pravin said: ‘It was really simple to set it all up actually; all we did was message her on Instagram and it all took off from there.

‘Having someone who is so popular in the area doesn’t just help to tell her story, it also helps to contribute to something amazing.

‘We are so grateful to Lauren for working with us, and I think the end result is pretty great too.’