Award winning Australian retail design studio, Cuschieri Design, has designed Crema Espresso’s latest coffee lover’s experience. Crema Espresso has positioned itself in Australia as the premium brand offering the ultimate coffee experience. Situated in Westfield Carindale shopping centre high fashion area the design brief required the delivery the WOW factor yet in an understated and elegant way. The position required that the colour and finishes palette be subtle and neutral to reflect the quality of the kiosk’s high calibre retailer neighbours such as Chanel and Apple.

True to the philosophy of Crema Espresso, while the majority of cafes follow trend and are going moody and black in their colour palettes and designs, Crema Espresso has taken the opposite strategy going white, light and bright. Australia has a particular kind of light and Australians are an outdoor culture and although situated in a shopping centre the idea was to capture this freshness and lightness of our environment and lifestyle. This bucking of the trend away from moody, dark European style cafes has seen the steady growth of Crema Espresso in a retail environment that is cautious and lacking real confidence.

David Cuschieri, director of Cuschieri Design says: “We created a pure white monolithic sculptural form for the kiosk, with smooth curved corners, which was carried through to the seating area. Details were refined, and subtle, such as the incised Crema Espresso flower and cup motif with only the petals in red; high polished stainless steel Crema lettering to the kiosk walls and a clear glass pylon sign. The openness of the space and the position in the fashion run dictated that the space required something sculptural to give Crema Espresso a presence. ”

The design of the kiosk recently was awarded first place in the Staron Design Awards 2013 for its varied use of Staron, a solid surface material that clads the majority of the café walls and seating pods. The new look Crema Espresso, with its refined white curves, is at home amongst the cream of the shops in the high fashion precinct. Elegant and understated, this innovative design has delivered in design what it set out to do. Crema Espresso doesn’t shout out its presence, for good style needn’t be so loud, especially in a place of high discretion, high discretionary spending that is.