Wunderground Coffee planned to open a retail cafe in Seattle Washington's Capital Hill neighborhood. Founded by a former Starbucks employee and Seattle native, the goal was to create a unique cultural touchpoint for the brand.

Many restaurants and cafes are meant for quick interactions but rarely are quickly understood environments by their customers. We needed to create an architectural flow that was intuitive to a new customer, and appreciated by returning customers.

Wunderground Coffee’s unique visual identity was applied it to a brick-and-mortar retail setting using different textures, patterns, and colorful accents. We brought the space to life with a balance of foreground and background interactive hierarchy.

The foreground experience consisted of a massive nurse log installation by Electric Coffin. They made a custom silk screen pattern with mushroom and coffee-themed imagery which was repeated throughout the cafe space. The foreground environmental experience could take a long time to digest in detail, but simultaneously created an immediate impact for customers on the go.

The background experience consisted of branded color accents and coffee packaging in the retail space to create subtle directional cues to guide a new or existing customer through the cafe's ordering experience. The bright colors and packaging were off-set with weighty, natural materials like exposed concrete, marble, and wood to create a sense of stability and calm.

The cafe space exhibits wonder and creativity in an original design—adding to the robust nature of the brand’s visual system.