Workplace & Coffee

Location and timing were our strengths but also our weaknesses. First, the LM café was located in the heart of Milan’s Brera district, known for its elegant fashion boutiques, galleries, and antique stores. Yet, it was tucked away along a secondary street out of sight of many passersby.

Second, Salone del Mobile draws in hundreds of thousands of visitors. Most attendees have a full plate packed with events, openings, and exhibitions around the city. With so many exhibitors competing for attention, getting in the spotlight is a challenge. That is unless you have a large enough budget to hire a PR agency.

With the Linea Mini, you can brew excellent coffee at home. It’s also a practical, stylish companion for coffee breaks in offices. Were employee experience and office managers aware of this product and its benefits? Probably not. The LM team and I figured out an opportunity to engage this audience of office workers.

In short, we knew we had to reach the right people and entice them enough to swing by the café instead of going to one of the gazillion other events taking place simultaneously. Of course, not an easy task! But with our goals well-plated on the table, my team and I got to work.

In designing the café experience, we played to our strengths. Was the café tucked away? Great! We’d provide an intentionally calm and quiet space for respite amongst the bustle of Salone. We positioned the café as a place to learn and meet like minded individuals united by a passion for coffee and genuine care for people.

Those who were looking to learn and engage found the opportunity to think about their experience with coffee and food in the workplace through a one-on-one audit called the “Workplace Food Check” (which I trialed out for the occasion) and a panel conversation entitled “Brewing Strong Work Culture.”

The Workplace Food Check, a tool I designed to map food interactions in the workplace, asked the following questions: What rituals do you have around food at work? What about your colleagues? Do you eat by yourself or do you eat together with others? Where do you eat at work?

These seemingly simple questions forced our global audience of café patrons to analyze their work situations and experiences. If they were in charge of employee experience, their answers also reflected their workplace culture. The most common feedback I heard was, “Wow. I never thought about that.”

Tapping into LM’s almost century-long knowledge about coffee, I curated and hosted a panel conversation and tasting session called Brewing Strong Work Culture, which took place in the back room of the café. 

LM’s Coffee Educator Alexander Gable joined me to give a quick overview of specialty coffee and showed us how to brew the perfect espresso with the Linea Mini. I also shared some tips and suggestions to improve the experience of drinking coffee at work by inventing creative, meaningful ways to convene over coffee.

Since the café didn’t have a clear brand identity, we had to make Workplace & Coffee recognizable. Identifying an opportunity to weave together the story through design, I commissioned talented Danish artist Clara Ernst to illustrate the essence of Workplace & Coffee. At home or in the office, coffee brings us together. 

Using the illustration as the central art piece, Clara also designed a poster for Workplace & Coffee. We printed her design on FSC-certified, GMO-free FAVINI paper made of residues of organic products. The posters illuminated the windows of the café, managing to get a few smiles out of passersby.

Workplace & Coffee encourages our guests to move beyond the experience of mindlessly drinking coffee and stop to think about how we co-create culture every day, one cup at a time. From the villages of Italy to the cafes of Turkey, coffee is a central part of many global cultures.

Workplace & Coffee intended to bring awareness to the role of coffee in both our personal and work lives. With our conversations and demonstrations, we discovered that the ritual of brewing a hot beverage (be it coffee or tea) is something that few people could live without.

Through their maps of food interactions and hand-brewed cups of espresso that they made with us (some of them for the first time), our guests experienced the true essence of coffee first-hand and developed newly formed friendships. They also left with a newfound understanding that coffee is more than the beloved liquid that picks us up in the morning. Instead, the ritual of making coffee brings people together and profoundly affects our relationships and quality of life.

Team:

• Veronica Fossa – Concept ideation and development, Creative direction, Speaking & Moderation, Marketing, Communications & PR
• Stefano Giacomin – Marketing, Communications, PR, Social media, Production
• Clara Ernst – Event Identity, Illustrations, and Graphic Design

Your next gathering starts with a 30-min video call to talk about the challenges you’re experiencing, and answer any questions you have.