Branding a café as a multimodal space for speculative multidisciplinary dialogue
An experimental branding approach for a multi-sensorial experience
Client: Project Otenga Cafe
Project Otenga is an experimental space for multidisciplinary collaborations, gastronomical experiences, mindful living and promotion of traditional practices. The space is a café, a design studio and (in-beta mode) human lab.Role: Branding Designer & Experience Curator
(directly collaborating with brand co-founders — Kabyashree Borgohain and Dayananda Meitei)*The website is now being redesigned but was in use in this form between
May, 2018 — May, 2020Year: 2018
(This was also my thesis project for completion of my Communication Design degree at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Gandhinagar)This project won the most innovative graduation project award, awarded to a graduating student every year for exemplary work that crosses boundaries of conventional brief at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Gandhinagar in 2018
Problem statement
“How to brand and position Project Otenga café as a multimodal space for multidisciplinary dialogue?”
The Process
- Initial Audit: First, I tried understanding how far they’d reached and what their current branding initiatives. Since this was a chapter 2 of the initiative which was first tested in Gandhinagar, and was now stationed in the Ahmedabad University campus. The space needed a redirected branding approach, which needed to shift perception from a ‘home café’ to a multimodal space for multidisciplinary dialogue. So it needed a fresh start.
- Brainstorm: The first idea of bringing this multimodal approach swindled with creating a biweekly magazine on themes that Project Otenga was hoping to stir dialogue on in a multidisciplinary approach. Further thinking of all outward modes of dissemination. In the second phase of brainstorm, we decided to let the culmination be decided on the type of curatorial activities. Experiential curation was the approach taken, and the themes were to emerge organically with new people and patrons looking to collaborate and build further.
Part 1: Conceptualizing Experiential Curations
Curating and designing experiences that are experimentational, spontaneously planned yet strategically placed was how we started thinking of various experiences to curate, design and plan. Ideas emerged from the content calendar that jotted down interesting days across the world, or someone interesting we met as a patron in the café or as a spontaneous idea from our thoughts. Starting from cookout events to design thinking and gastronomical experiences to the many talks and discussions that happened, there were many roles I played, a researcher, a designer, a promoter, a facilitator and a spectator.
These were experiments that would build guidelines into what kind of experiences shall Project Otenga curate, collaborate for and host in the coming days and how do we create a base for these?
Over the next 10 weeks, we ideated, designed, planned, promoted and executed over 6 one-of-their kind curatorial experiences
Khet to Plate: With Bihu coming by, and the North Eastern roots of the café, we thought of creating an experience that would bring together the North Eastern community in Ahmedabad along with a festive celebration for people of different origins as a cookout of various cuisines across India.
Spatial Detox: We designed a collective 18 — day social experience understand habit-building by facilitating our patrons in detoxing their own living, working and mental spaces. This was done as a deep conceptual research into the psychology of clutter and space.
Six strings and a mouthful: This was curated as an experience which engages with the philosophical rebellious movement of Romanticism through a gastronomical expression of art and a harmonious aura of sonic synchrony. In collaboration with guitarist Aditya Gandhi, we grouped forces to work on an experience where one could sense, taste, smell, feel, hear and see romanticism, the art movement in its complete essence. I also wrote short poetry bites based on the themes of the art movement as a part of the experience.
Fruition: Project Otenga collaborated with Chef Dilda White for a visual gustatory nine-course dining experience. With a sensorial attempt to bring the winters of Kumaon closer to our patrons, we raised an appetite for form and taste by putting together a hearty, nine course participatory experience. With the olfactory and tasteful appeal of food to the visual appeal of the art works by Chef Dilda White.
The stories and taste of Masi Magam Thiruvizha: Masi Magam is a very important and auspicious festival in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In collaboration with Kaniyammal and her daughter Vidya, we curated the stories and taste of Masi Magam Thiruvizha’. With workshops of Kolam making and Toran making, young girls to elderly women enthusiastically took part in learning these traditions. Learning had become fun as Mrs. Kanniyamal taught them joyously and explained the importance culturally and scientifically.
What does it mean to be human?: A movie screening and talk by ethnographer and visiting faculty (NID), Anand Sukumaran. As technology increasingly blurs the boundaries between the human and the machine resulting in the cyborg, what does future hold for humanity? What would it mean to be human in a world that fuses nature, the body and culture in one single seamless engagement? Would our notions of thinking and feeling ‘like a human’ undergo a radical shift? This was a collective discussion that would revolve around the themes of Blade Runner, a 1982-American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott.
Part 2: Articulating the brand
While curating these experiences, and interacting with the brand constantly, I kept understanding and constantly articulating Project Otenga’s philosophy and identity. With constant experimentation and articulation, I analyzed the many touchpoints of Project Otenga, whether it is through the space, through the social media or to be created in the form of a website to talk of the space and document all the branding experiences. Since this, the tangible branding started with preparing a curated meal questionnaire and an information kit for Project Otenga, that kept developing with the transforming idea of the space for me.
Finally integrating into a touchpoint analysis, development of a mascot character, various signages, visual language exploration and tagging, articulating the brand identity through copy and visuals.
From water color to crayons, felt tip pens and using different types of paper, pressure, tonality to create a varied looks and styles of illustration, all intuitively leading towards one direction. Now, implementing different styles in different collaterals and testing them in space to see which one identifies the most.
Kitchen garden & Ingredients: The most important aim of the kitchen garden was to inspire people and make them think about growing their own fruits and vegetables. The copy talks about the benefits of the fruit/vegetable and also on how to grow them in urban set-ups. People visiting Project Otenga are often curious about the North Eastern ingredients being used in the kitchen. Which is also a reason why the café has a walk-in kitchen where anyone could come in and cook, ask the host about the ingredients or know the them more. To facilitate that behavior further I thought of tagging the jars with interesting graphic readable to intrigue and impact the patrons who walk — in regularly.
Branding & Signages: There were quite a few places in the space where we wanted to courteously remind people to be mindful and conscious and feel free from any kind of judgements. Project Otenga’s core values had to be reinforced, earlier we thought of the restrooms, desks, other areas in the cafe where we could do so. Starting with the restroom through with a typographic letter, I began to explore in this direction. Earlier the restroom was meant to be unisex, however it was later decided to keep it by the conventional way.
Mascot development: With the kind of branding messages required, there was a need for a third person, the onus of ‘behavior’ shouldn’t fall upon any of the hosts, since they are human too. I thought, my illustration style is like those of doodles, what if there is an interesting character that could be the voice of Project Otenga. I started with going through the old illustrations of Otenga, the fruit, and further tried to work on those lines, going from hand illustrated to digital illustration, finally finding a form, and using it ahead. ‘Buddha eyes’ were also a cue.
Redesigning of the menu: The menu at the café at present was not resonant with Project Otenga’s perception with people. The menu also graphically had a few issues, where the sections were not segregated well and there would be confusion in choosing the right items. Moreover, many more items had to be added to the menu, because of which there needed to be a new layout altogether. This also will establish a synchrony in the many styles used across different collaterals. Redesign insights included:
- Since, all the other collateral are heavily based on illustration, it would be a good idea to use them on the menu which would add a bit of the fun element missing
- The sections need to be segregated well, with the interesting titles on one side and the clear description on the other, for better understanding of the menu.
- A sense of hierarchy to be maintained in the categories, as missing on the previous menu.
- Some copy can be rewritten as required, and new copy to be written to accommodate new entries.
- A separate menu for drinks, food and other services to communicate different ideas. without losing out.
- Each menu can feature a different tagline that I ideated from the copy, for instance, ‘brewing mindfulness’ or ‘constantly cultivating a culture’, ‘cultivating compassion’ and more.
The website: The website is about articulation of Project Otenga’s philosophy, story and a portfolio of the work done by the studio, reservations to be taken by the café, and an entire communication of how things work. The first idea was to divide the landing pages into cafe and studio, another was to use the organic form of Otenga in different layers and use it to show the cafe, studio and the human lab, as they are interconnected. Then the decision was left on different types of layouts that needed to be tried out.
‘About’ and ‘Our story’ page: The metaphor of Otenga the fruit used to convey the philosophy of Project Otenga is apt, each layer has been cut open illustratively to depict different parts of the space. The cactus is used as the ‘growing’ metaphor for the transforming space and how the café has grown over from a thesis project to a full fledged experimental space.
A vertical scroll with snapshots of all the pages inside the website, and call to actions with interesting copywritten taglines to let the user peek through the website.
The sections have been reduced to About which includes Philosophy and Story, Café which includes Relish (Menu) and Reservations, Studio and Contact us which would include contact details and a pinboard calendar of events.
The other parts have illustrated snapshots to identify to the visual language used for Otenga for previous collaterals.
Branding stationary: These were made as a part of the branding collaterals, and I conceptualized how one could brand the founders as a part of the larger brand. With quotes from them that they often talk about, visiting cards were also made, and all of this was printed on repurposed handmade khadi paper sourced from Kalamkush, Ahmedabad.
Social Media: By adding and standardizing the #tags that can be used by Project Otenga and further giving a whole format to the Instagram page, the followers increased by about a double.
Outcome
Project Otenga grew to become a spot known for its dialogue and discourse of multiple perspectives around ideas of mindfulness, culture, traditional ideas and engaging with diverse individuals from a multidisciplinary standpoint. This helped set Project Otenga in the experimental spaces of the city and help it shape its transforming identity even further.
The various ways of Branding and building a community, whether it was through experiences, space or the website, Project Otenga’s image was impacted by people enquiring and engaging with the platform. There were instances where we met our next collaborator at an experience we curated last, or people met each other at a certain event and collaborated on something truly interesting.
