Vicente Wolf

Name: Charles Prior
City: Sydney
State: NSW
Country: Australia

Comment:

Dear Vicente, I have to congratulate you on your Blog its an amazing resource for both members of the public and us designers. I have a quick question for you; In an ideal world we are given plenty of time to allow creativity to develop and in the past I have been lucky enough to have projects with planning stages in the years and monthes. However, I have recently signed a contract to complete a small restaurant/cafe with a total completion time of 5 weeks. Meaning the design and documentation needs to be completed in days. Any tips on how to kickstart the creativity process? How would you approach the design side of such a short concept development period? I should point out that it does have a realistic budget and that although the food is likely to be a mix of Mediterranean and North African the client is insistent that the interior is fairly generic and is only accented with the flavours of the food.
Thanks for your thoughts,
Charles

Vicente Responds:

Well, first of all, how to proceed – I say fast! You have a short window. How would you get inspired? I would look at books of Morocco, North Africa and start to look at environments. My immediate sense is to give them color, because with a paint job you can certainly create great drama. Use one color repeatedly to neutralize the space and fill it in with substance. Think of Moroccan plates on the wall and do a lot of repetition of the same thought – be it plates or color or whatever elements you come up with. Good luck – send us photos of the final design.