KWEE'S KOPITIAM
by Vio, Afiny, Zahra
Kwee's Kopitiam is a comprehensive project that requires us to create an imaginary café.
We planned and built everything from the concept, branding, advertising, business, and interior design. Kwee's is one of my favourite project because we weren't exactly confined by a brief but were given challenges that we needed to overcome such as small space, minimal cost, and authenticity.
THE STORY
The idea behind Kwee's is actually quite personal because it's inspired by my grandma. She was born in the 1920's in a family whose Chinese culture and traditions were still very strong. Undoubtedly, the world around her has revolved so much that almost everything she knew about has completely changed or disappeared, and she misses them badly.
Today, at 93 years old, my grandma still loves to tell stories about her childhood, or how much easier things are right now( & I’m so lucky to live in today’s world). Honestly speaking, my memory isn’t well built, but I remember these stories because when she tells them there’s a sense of longing in her tone. She talks about it with bright eyes, and her mouth never seems to run out of words.
Thus why my family likes to take her to vintage places to eat, and she loves it! When the view changes to a vintage Chinese scenery, she’d point at the most mundane things such as the pattern on the bowl, the shape of the window, the table, the labels of old snacks, and be able to tell even more stories about it with more excitement and a sense of belonging.
This is our vision for Kwee’s, thus the tagline “Rewind time, Relive moments"
We noticed that there's a lack of well-designed Kopitiam places in Jakarta, this is one of the reasons why we made a Kopitiam instead of a normal café.
Kopitiam or kopi tiam is a traditional coffee shop found in Southeast Asia, patronised for meals and beverages The word kopiis a Malay/Hokkien term for coffee and tiam is the Hokkien/Hakka term for shop (店). Menus typically feature simple offerings: a variety of foods based on egg, toast, and kaya, plus coffee, tea, and Milo.
Our name is based on a Chinese family surname and our logo is the traditional coffee pot with the hanzi 郭 (guō) in the middle. It is enclosed in a circle and hand brushed to suggest friendliness and softness.
As you can see, our menu is a combination of traditional Indo-Chinese-Western culinary.
Thank you ! :)
