It always a happy surprise when a large mega-brand gets it right, so I have to give props to Starbucks for this one. The cafe is located in Fukuoka, on the grounds of the Dazaifu Tenmagu, a Shinto shrine complex. Designed by Kengo Kuma, the space is filled with long, square blocks which criss-cross around the space, creating what looks like a mathematically constructed nest. It’s interesting to me, that even though the walls and ceilings are mostly covered in wooden beams, the space still seems to be rather open feeling. It would be really wonderful if Starbucks decided to take more chances like this in their other stores around the world.
I’m going to try my best and post a little more branding on the site, and I thought this gem from Atelier Müesli was well worth sharing. Created for the French restaurant John Rosiak, Müesli has created an odd bit of branding out of some rather unique typography. You can see clearly by the R, S, K and H, which have been blown up larger than the rest, that the letters are made up of only simple, geometric shapes. The R is made of a circle and two lines, the S of two unfinished circles, and so on. It helps to turn these letters into graphic shapes, something more than just a part of a word. The interplay between the letters is also really nice, some of them being a bit more odd and some being quite normal. Definitely nice to see branding like this for something like a French restaurant.
I’m not one for packing lunches, I’m too busy in the morning (sleeping), but I love the look of these ceramic lunch kits by Lorea Sinclaire. It’s made of slip cast ceramic, cork, metal fittings, and mimics the classic and always handy bento box. I think the materials and faceted shape really give the bento box a nice twist, and the cork top is a nice contrast to the smooth, white ceramic. Really well done.
Seems like the news is full of bitter Americans, though Ham the Chimpanzee, the first chimpanzee launched into outer space in 1961, has to be one of the most bitter in history. British artist Joe Wilson produced the above package design for San Francisco based brewery 21st Amendment’s Bitter American Seasonal Ale. It’s a nice, cheeky alternative to traditional alcoholic product packaging which can sometimes take itself too seriously. I know what I’ll be grabbing next time I pop down to the corner store.
I feel like I’m playing catch-up with things I’ve missed from the past six months, but that’s okay, the site is about quality, not being first. I think what actually sparked me seeing this advertisement for Chipotle was that it was broadcast last night during the Grammys. I didn’t watch the Grammys last night, but I kept seeing people tweet about the commercial which led me to find it.
For those in the world who don’t know what Chipotle is, it’s basically heaven wrapped in burrito form. To make a long story short, they were founded in 1993, then owned by McDonalds from 1996 till 2006, and now are back on their own doing what they think is best. The commercial above was created to illustrate the point that they think and act differently, and I think it’s pretty effective.
The commercial was created by Johnny Kelly who did an incredible job. The look and feel of the short is cute and reminds me of blocks I’d play with as a child. It then gets a bit grim, with steroid injected pigs being turned into food cubes, but it certainly makes sense. But then the farmer character gets a renewed sense of what he really does and makes things right, flipping the world on its head. All of this is happening to a score of Willie Nelson covering Coldplay’s The Scientist, so you know they really meant business with this one. I also read that the whole thing was “filmed in one sweeping take the film was painstakingly animated over 4-weeks on one large all-encompassing model background.”
It’s nice to see a company of this size doing something different. One time when I was in a Chipotle, and there was a sign where you ordered your food saying that the local chicken they normally used wasn’t available, that they had to truck in some chicken from a little farther away, but things should be back to normal soon. Can you imagine any other mega chain of restaurants making a statement like that?
About a month ago, an interesting little article was posted over on the New York Times pointing out that the iconic Chinese takeout container isn’t Chinese at all. I’m not sure if these containers are used globally or not; They’re not used in China, but here in America these containers are symbolic of Chinese foods and are used in every Chinese restaurant I’ve ever been in. As it turns out, though, the container was invented by a fellow named Frederick Weeks Wilcox to transport raw oysters:
Wilcox’s paper box seems to have been an advance in existing “oyster pail” technology. (The oyster pail, as described by Ernest Ingersoll in his 1880 book, “The Oyster Industry,” was “a wooden receptacle with a locked cover used in transporting raw oysters.”) At any rate, the paper oyster pail and the incipient Chinese-food industry — which was beginning its meteoric rise in the early 20th century — seemed made for each other. “It’s nearly leakproof, and it’s disposable, and they’re really inexpensive,” says Michael Prince, who redesigned the Box O’ Joe Coffee carton for Dunkin’ Donuts. “Origami can make a really cool transport device.”
Similar is the story of the Fortune Cookie which also isn’t Chinese, and was most likely invented by Japanese immigrants living in California in the 1890s or early 1900s. Makoto Hagiwara of Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco is reported to have been the first person in the USA to have served the modern version of the cookie.
