Tate goes into beer, coffee and cufflinks business

The Tate Gallery's inexorable publicity campaign for its new museum continued apace yesterday with the launch of a range of brands, including coffee cups and beer, designed to promote Tate Modern and draw in more people.

A set of coffee cups bearing the logo "laTATE", a pun on the ubiquitous caffe latte, will be in branches of Coffee Republic from tomorrow, the day that the gallery officially opens at Bankside in London.

The restaurateur Oliver Peyton has also developed a new beer to be be sold in special Tate bottles in his outlets, which include Mash in Manchester and London and the Atlantic Bar and Grill.

Even the staff will be dressed by designers - Paul Smith has created the uniforms, which will be ready by the summer, as well as a range of cufflinks, T-shirts and bags for sale in Selfridges, the Tate's first store outside the galleries. Damian Whitmore, director of communications at the Tate, said the branding was part of the biggest campaign created for an art gallery. He described it as "part of a whole scheme to encourage more people to come to Tate Modern.

"It's basically an invitation to come to the Tate and the people that use these brands are our natural audience. We are looking at brands that are appropriate to the Tate - it's not tat but youngish and groovy. We are looking for other people to work with in the same way," he added.Mr Whitmore said the whole publicity campaign had cost about £500,000. "This branding didn't cost us anything, we just asked the companies if they wanted to get involved and they were delighted," he said.

Saha Hashemi, a co-founder of Coffee Republic, said she was honoured to have been approached. "This is the biggest art event ever and it was wonderful that we were asked to be part of that," she said.