Introduction:
Team Cadets has worked to find spatial solutions for Cuppa, located on historic 25th Street in Ogden, Utah.
Cuppa, a café for creatives with a plant based menu, offers more than vegan baking, artistically presented food, coffee and tea.
Our final proposal was to put window stickers in the left door, as customers are naturally drawn to enter the right door as of now.
Above: Cuppa’s original set-up for the front of their store. The neon sign draws you in, but to the wrong entrance.
Below: Our proposed changes. This new design brings attention to the correct entrance and informs customers that this is a place to “take thyme”.
Customers, trying to enter the locked northern door, are re-routed to the southern entrance the through visual cues of the thyme leaves. The thyme leaf symbolizes the values of Cuppa: sustainability, a plant based diet, and taking time to be creative. The double meaning of thyme/time surfaces in the tag-line, “Take thyme at Cuppa, A Cafe’ for Creatives.”
Research and Process:
Our creative process led us to solutions that addressed issues. We visited the location, interviewed the owners, Nate and Bec Sato and discussed values, inspirations, goals and needs.
It ventured to be a quiet gathering space for like-minded community members who enjoy the personal unhurried environment that encourages you to take your time creating. We explored applications to communicate the purpose of this location to the community.
An emerging qualitative business idea focuses on community well-being as their bottom line.
Starbucks was the first to take on this ideology of giving the customer space and an opportunity to enjoy their time there for as long as they’d like. Businesses like Cuppa have taken the next step in business evolution.
Their responsibility for the impact they have as a business on the surrounding community and world is reflected in their support of sustainability, plant based menus, participation in the art walk, providing local musicians a place to play in the evenings and more.
They have raised their standards in friendliness, cleanliness and a well maintained high quality business space to promote it in the surrounding area.
This new ideology of connectedness to the environment needs a new form of communication to the public. Loud advertisements don’t lend to the humble nature of the value system. Word of mouth seemed to be the preferred method to attract like-minded customers to Cuppa.
We had each of our group members think of ideas we could use to improve the space. We all had varying ideas that helped us further our look into improving the space.
We also conducted a social experiment with tape to get an idea of how people would interact with taped off areas to possibly include in our design intervention.
We proposed a subtle symbol of the thyme leaf for those who are looking to support community-oriented businesses who value them as a fellow human being first and customer second. The thyme leaf gives a sense of permission to slow their pace and reach out of themselves creatively and to others.
We started to prototype ideas of incorporating this logo into the establishment.
Pictures of the prototyping process
Some prototypes created for possible ways to integrate the thyme leaf.
Eventually, we came to the idea of making windows stickers that would catch the customer's eye and guide them into entering the right door. In addition, the thyme leaf symbolizes the values of the establishment, as a place to take your time and be creative.
We further propose that the city business directory have a thyme leaf column of similar businesses that encourage patrons to “take their thyme” in their place of business. It seems natural that people who value these qualitative attitudes will gravitate to the “Take your Thyme” destinations.
Meet our team!
