Places Where People Meet

Well, it only seems fair…

to start with the venue in which I sat with a friend, drinking tea (mmmm tea), talking about blogs (oddly enough) and how much I love designing any kind of place where people meet, and the moment when he uttered “Now here’s an idea…” – anyway, long story short  - I am now writing this post…!!

Venue: Caffe Dolce, The Podium, Bath, UK
Who: Me and Neil – we were having a post business breakfast 1-2-1 meeting
Consumed: Me a tea (what else?!), him a latte

They say first impressions count…

so, what was my first impression? Well,er, actually it was to make a mental note of how nice the cakes in the chiller cabinet looked! Second impression: “Oooo this is nice!“….Third impression: “Hmmm … or is it???”

It struck me at how easily we can be impressed – or at least at how easily I can be impressed, and I’m a designer! First the cakes, then the moderately modern/contemporary interior. Nothing particularly unpleasant, yet nothing fascinatingly different. Just your average case of blah being overshadowed by a cake-filled chiller cabinet.

Ok, so let’s start with the positive…

after all I like to consider myself a positive kind of person (just the right side of being annoyingly so). What was right with this particular ‘place where people meet‘ from a design perspective? Well apart from the cakes, and the fact that I bumped into my friend Matt tucked away reading a book (hi Matt!), the space was well laid out (no holding your stomach in to squeeze past too-close-together tables) and bright, and…and…and…oh, that seems to be about it.

So what was less great?

Well, for starters the decor was, well…fine – an unimaginative, a la ‘DIY’ mode, cream and chocolate brown (don’t get me wrong, I love these colours when done well) and the tables, chairs and lighting were, well not un-contemporary but just a bit predictable really.  There were two things that I really didn’t like though. The first was the supposedly ‘helpful’ magazine rack – a hideous sort of wooden box shelving unit, which looks likes the kind of thing they use to sort out mail in a block of flats. Not only was it really very ugly, but it was in a predominant place, with a gone-yellow, half-peeled off, taped on sign reading “Mind Your Head” (to which Neil pointed out that it meant we could not comfortably sit back on our predictable, brown faux leather sofa!). On top of it was, amongst other bits and pieces, a blue ceramic elephant (or was it a cow?) thing and a cuddly penguin dressed up to go skiing. Stuck behind the ski-penguin was an attempt at providing the venue with a piece of art (and when I say art I mean it in the loosest of terms!) Yes folks, this was the decor!!

The other thing that Neil, in particular, didn’t like was the projected wall clock.  He said he didn’t like it because it was an OHP and reminded him of school (er..ok). I did, at this point, stand up for the projected clock. There was after all, nothing actually wrong with it per se, except that it was positioned on the wrong wall, too high up for anyone to see it, and was the only ‘decoration’ on a relatively large expanse of wall.  It was at the point that we really started getting in to our impromptu design critique, and noticed the skirting on the bottom of the counter had fallen off, the brooms were left lying against the wall, and the take-away coffee up lids were on full display in a rather unattractive blue plastic basket, er, thing!

Ok, so what did my design head come up with for this one?

Honestly, not a lot, after all I wasn’t really concentrating – I didn’t know I’d be sat here writing this this afternoon for starters (had I known I’d have paid far more attention..oops!). But from what I do remember, I’d suggest some or all of the following…

• Firstly, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The colour scheme is actually fine. I don’t remember the flooring but I do know it wasn’t a walnut effect vinyl or laminate, which would have grounded the great expanse of cream and evened out the balance of base colour.

• Secondly, it’s not rocket science, but I’d just give the place a jolly good scrub, fresh lick of paint and a good tidy up. Habitat is literally across the road – I’ll bet that they have a much nicer container to pop those coffee cup lids in for not too many pennies!

• Thirdly, it goes without saying that I’d lose the “art” and the “magazine rack”. In fact I would propose moving the projected clock on to the wall where the magazine rack is sat the moment, and make it slightly bigger (for effect) and lower down (so people can actually see it!!).

• And finally… I’d also look into making a feature wall by using a modern wallpaper, or even a digital wallpaper design (by the likes of the Print 2 Group) and bring in red as an accent colour, just to warm it all up a bit. I can’t really remember what the chairs and tables looked like, but I know they’d look fab tied in with a large red glass tea light holder, matched up with some red cushions on that brown faux leather furniture.

As for the magazine rack?

Well, in this day and age there are so many fab products out there - like this tube magazine rack from A Place For Everything (A Place For Everything), that there really is no excuse (sigh).