Page 56 - #59 English

c Cover Story

It would be fair to say that
creation of Starbucks signifi-
cantly altered world café cul-
ture, from a small and humble
coffee shop in Seattle, this coffee
giant has spread its net all over
the globe. It is a well known
story, that creators of Starbucks
borrowed European cafés’ ele-
ments for their first store. How-
ever, today Starbucks can be
called one of the models for the
rest of the coffee shops in the
world. Starbucks opened its first
store in Seattle, its design was
more industrial focusing on what
machines and equipment they used. Over time, the company started open-
ing new shops and changing design there increasing its success, but there
are always common design points. Earth tones interior and furniture made
out of natural materials give customers an aesthetic feel and homeyness.
For the first time customers were allowed to choose what type of seating
they would prefer: small tables for independent work in the internet, com-
fort armchairs and sofas around a coffee table to relax with friends or a
long wooden table with high chairs for a team work. Moreover, Starbucks
pioneered with the use of environmental stimulations like smell of freshly
brewed coffee and an opportunity to touch coffee beans, auditory stimula-
tions like calm music loud enough to silent other customers’ conversations
and give you more privacy but at the same time quite enough to let you
have a conversation with someone else. Nowadays a lot of coffee shops
take Starbucks as an example as its international net influenced world café
culture and set high standards for customer friendly design and environ-
ment in a coffee shop.
Cafés and coffee houses have always
Cafés and coffee houses have been seen as social hubs, but with time
its role in the society changed: it used to
always been seen as social hubs. be the place for people to gather and influ-
ence the society-create new philosophical
and political ideas etc. where guests paid
more attention to the conversations’ top-
ics rather then design or even coffee quality, while today cafés are still a social
hub, but social mood has changed which brought us to different understand-
ing on how to use this space. Customers spend a good deal of time in cof-
fee shops working, having private conversations or just spending time by
themselves so they want to feel comfort and belongingness. That is why
coffee houses’ design emerged and became one of the most important
criteria-maybe even more important than coffee itself- to choose a café to
spend some time in. Started as a space that could influence society; café
slowly became a place influenced by it.

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