Poster Design: Seattle Meowtropolitan Pop-Up Cat Cafe
“Seattle loves coffee. Seattle loves cats. We’re putting coffee and cats together in one place.”
What's the deal?
One of the co-founders of the Seattle Meowtropolitan Cat Cafe approached me and asked me to work on a poster design to promote their pop-up cat cafe event in Seattle, WA. As the name suggests, the cat cafe involves a lot of cats and of course, it wouldn't be established as a cafe without serving the essentials - coffee.
My Motivation
I could not resist the temptation to design something fun and quirky. What attracted me to the project was really the dedication of the co-founders wanting to bring this concept to a city of coffee lovers. With the rise of the Grumpy cat and gifs of cats flooding the pages of the most popular social media sites (i.e. Buzzfeed and Pinterest), I wanted to contribute to the cat community with a tinkle of my creativity.
Client: Seattle Meowtropolitan
Timeframe: 2 weeks
Design Process:
Take One
My initial idea was to really highlight what we have here in the Pacific Northwest - Mountains. I usually find my inspiration from what represents the city the most (events like Bumbershoot or Sasquatch really accentuates the point I'm making). Hence, I choose green and of course, incorporated mountains into the poster.
But this idea didn't work out.
The co-founders of Seattle Meowtropolitan wanted something 'cute' and more cafe-related. The colors were also too dark and was not consistent to their overall branding.
Take Two
Here, I experimented with more joyful colors to encompass the cute and joyful theme and even added shades to the cat for a little sense of humor. The colors really popped in this one. The coffee mug also brought in some elements of the poster selling to its audience that 'Hey, this is a poster about a cafe!'.
During this stage of design, I really had a better sense of idea what I was going for. The essential things I wanted to incorporate - cat and coffee, with a pop of a minimalistic approach and a strong visual hierarchy.
Take Three - Final (below)
After numerous conversations with the co-founders. I've settled with a much more joyful and youthful color palette without creating the 'in your face' effect. The colors ended up contrasting without overpowering each other. Instead of the neon blue coffee mug, I've settled with a much subtle color - a very light grey.
#meow