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Design Grind: The Aesthetics of Coffee House Culture · Design Darlings

• Design Darlings: Hello darling. Allie Miller: Hello, darling, I'm Allie. Design Darlings: And I'm Robin and welcome to Design Darlings, the podcast where we obsess over what makes, breaks, or bakes a good design in the world. This week is about the professional grind, how we work, play, and fuel ourselves in the in-between. We're asking the question, when did coffee and design become so ridiculously entwined? But first, Allie Miller: We are going to the design news desk. We have some high brown news, some low brown news, and everything in between. First, just starting off with a little bit of fun, the Oscars, the 98th Oscars were this past week. We were recording the week afterwards. And as fashion and production design lovers, we want to talk about what was going on, what we were seeing, what were our trends, both from the fashion as well as the sets. So I think first, one thing I noticed was there were a lot of references to sort of nature inspired design in this set. You were seeing sort of like linen screens, a lot of stone detail both in the kind of physical set as well as the... digital graphics, garden motifs, it sort of felt like you were in a garden, I think that was just, it was a really nice sort of nod, bringing some natural kind of lightness to the area in the set. didn't feel so sort of structured and kind of formal like some sets are. And then I think in the digital design, right, you had, it was clearly referencing older, Kind of that same Frank Lloyd Wright mid-century design, but then it almost had kind of like a early 2000s design when I think of like 2000s ish movies and they have those sort of blocky kind of simplistic title cards It it was kind of referencing that which I liked there was a lot of kind of nods. It felt almost vintage But in a still in kind of a modern way Design Darlings: Listen, vintage is new again. did feel, definitely, when I saw the set design, was like, Ooh, Frank Lloyd Wright vibes because of the, ⁓ the nature motifs, the wood, ⁓ panels, ⁓ and the patterning in that, because it had some of those, like, ⁓ those art deco motifs. I really appreciated that. And I loved how versatile they were that like, yes, you've got this screen that, and I don't know if it was made out of wood or not. And I did not take the time to Google that. Allie Miller: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: But what looked like the design of them, those natural elements were great to see, right? To see a giant panel that's like 50 feet tall made of wood, but it could have been all projection and it could have just been all like ⁓ what they put that on there to be, like the graphic panel of it, because it was so easy to switch. And it was so cool, the versatility of it, the way that it went from... Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: you know, being something that looks like, like that's a natural wood panel into, ⁓ my gosh, like there's a movie on that right now. And I thought the way they scaled it because of the way it was so floor to ceiling, you know, that was the scale made it just feel more grandiose. And I loved it because the art, had such an architectural feel. It was like, it was great. So hi to my little designer heart. Allie Miller: Yeah. Yeah, I'm assuming it was some combination of practical construction and then AV. I know there's a tool, I'm gonna forget the name of it, but there's a kind of screen that is really widely used, especially in like concert design right now. And if you see any kind of big award show that's happened in the past two-ish, two, three years, because the technology is still pretty novel, but essentially they're these tiny little modular panels. Each panel is about... Design Darlings: then. me. Allie Miller: two inches by three inches. And what AV teams will do, especially for like traveling production, is you can essentially think of it as like a Lego block. So you can build it in truly any configuration you can think of, because you have this teeny tiny modular panel that you can, you take thousands of them and you split, you piece them all together. Design Darlings: Okay. Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: And then you have a server that you feed custom imagery to. And there's no projection involved. Like it's actually running from a server, from a LAN room. You have a server and some LAN room on a rack and then it pulls the images to that screen. And then you have a controller in the back who's, you're flipping each image every time you need a new one. But it allows you to make hyper custom sized graphics. But the image quality of them is like, Design Darlings: through the blood. Allie Miller: Truly pixel perfect like it's sort of like the new green screen like I think one of the Star Wars Franchises use this they like didn't even green screen They actually had a digital screen behind them and then they could just like flip through the backdrops in the videos ⁓ But it looks so realistic where it looks like a practical set That's why you can go from it looking like you're literally in a forest to the next scene is like it's playing a clip of one of the nominees Yeah Design Darlings: really cool. I don't know if you remember like probably like in 2010 when Amon Togan was touring and he had complex projection and so the set was actually like he was up in the booth and there was this crazy crazy set and it was built out like but what they did was it wasn't a flat ⁓ 2d projection it was this complex projection so you could ⁓ Like let's say it almost looked like a corner, but it was like lots of corners It was like a bunch of blocks stacked together. You projected on it was you could project into all these little corners So everything was different and at the time it was just so mind-blowing to see that and you know They synced it with the music and it was it was just so cool ⁓ And so I love how set design just keeps evolving and doing these really really magical things that in some ways Allie Miller: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Design Darlings: feels vintage, right? Like there was so many, the vintage feel to that set was like, ⁓ my gosh, someone's taking hours to build this. And there is the texture of it that has that human element. So to us, it feels really warm and really inviting because those natural elements are in it. And then boom, can switch into something that like, yes, it's, know, it could be like a transformer. Next minute. You're like. Allie Miller: Yeah, like there was a scene where Conan O'Brien and Sterling K Brown were doing like a Casablanca bit and so the whole screen literally was like the backdrop of Casablanca cut to the next scene they're doing the in memoriam tribute and you have all the you know people who passed and yeah so Design Darlings: Well, yes, that was great. Yeah. Allie Miller: the way they can flex between those screens. It's really phenomenal what they can do with those. And it's nice, it's different than like traditional projections, because a projection, you literally in the ceiling, you need to embed like the one example you talked about, you need to embed dozens, if not hundreds of projectors, which like the Dolby theater, you can't just rig up hundreds of projectors in the ceiling of the Dolby theater, like you just can't. So. ⁓ Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thank Why not? What do mean? I'm just kidding. Don't answer that. That was joke. Don't do it. ⁓ Allie Miller: The ceiling will collapse and crumble and fall and all the beautiful outfits and dresses will be covered in sheetrock and dust. yeah. I can have sequins. Yeah, let's talk fashion. Design Darlings: Speaking of special beautiful dresses and outfits, girl, there was a lot of There was a lot of good fashion. was actually, I remember I texted you and I was like, I'm loving the men were into like, there was a lot of Navy tux action happening with, you the black silk lapel and there was a lot of velvet and texture to it. And I was just loving it. Robert Downey Jr. was in the dark green and I was very pleased with gentlemen. Your tux game was on point. So thank you for that. Allie Miller: Lots of men's accessories. The men's, I think this year, the suits were simple, but lots of like cravats and lots of little lapel pins, lots of big, in the men, lots of big brooches, little feather details, little fun collars. My one gripe, I'm like, men, learn to tailor the length of your pant. Design Darlings: Thank you. Allie Miller: There's nothing more aggravating than seeing somebody in some gorgeous Chanel, Valentino, Versace suit and the pant length is too long. So you have these gorgeous loafers and they're just bunched up and that's not cute. Designers, stylist, tailor the length of these men's pants, please. Design Darlings: You Girl they're hurrying, they're rushing, they're in and out of there. They just grab those pants, you know, it's all about the jacket. They're like thinking waist up. But okay, your note is taken. Hopefully someone out there will hear it and carry that forward for you. Maybe they're not keeping the pants. Maybe they're handing them back so they didn't tail it. What? Allie Miller: Mm-hmm true. Yeah Although Timmy he might a white suit which was harkin his very first Oscars He wore an oversized bunched up white suit in this Oscars. He wore an oversized bunch of white suit so for him the ill-fitting this was intentional which doesn't make it excusable, but at least there was a reason behind it so Okay, all right who are some of our best dressed other than the men's accessories Design Darlings: Noted, madam, noted. I mean, there was a lot of, you know, there's always the, I don't want to say vintage glamour. It's the Hollywood glamour. That's really lovely. That's happening. Tiana Taylor, the last award she had on that Tom Brown dress that there was a lot of, know, some people loved it. Some people hated it, but you know, her Chanel was just, it was beautiful. I love, I love the elegance of what shows up on the red carpet. Allie Miller: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Design Darlings: I mean, there was just a lot of it. ⁓ Kate Hudson looked beautiful in her Armani. Allie Miller: Yeah. the peplum. I'm not a peplum fan typically, but it was just so Kate Hudson's it was so perfectly constructed and it was just in the most gorgeous seafoam green every little detail was just so precise and fit to her body. I just thought she was one of my best dressed of the night. Design Darlings: You know, and I think, okay, so this harkens to like the intention of the design and like clothes being art and architecture for the body. So when you see something, I mean, right, this is an award show that is, it's highly celebrated. It's a big deal. And so the fashion rises to the occasion of that. And I love seeing what people are wearing because of that. the intention that the designers go to those lengths to put that out there that it just, it's like a, it's a visual treat just like the set design. You're like, ⁓ my gosh, look at the visual treat for all of us. Yes, we're here. Allie Miller: Right. Yeah, like you're not gonna wear the same thing to the Oscars as you would to the MTV Music Video Awards, right? They each have their different sort of dress codes, so to speak. One person I loved, Khloé Zhao, ⁓ she was on many people's worst dressed look. She was on my best dressed look because I love a quirky girl. She was wearing Gabriella Hurst and basically was wearing like a morning gown, which... Design Darlings: You Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: people are really extrapolating a lot of interpretations on one because apparently recently the ⁓ the the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot was canceled, which she was going to direct. So people think that was she was like trying to be petty and just show them she's winning the cancellation of. Yeah. But also in real life, she's training to become a death doula, which is so badass and I just think is so radical, but Design Darlings: I look for petty fashion all day long petty fashion. Okay, we'll always take that Really? Allie Miller: And obviously if you've seen Hamnet, you know that the movie's about a mother who's mourning the loss of her child and not the father who's mourning the loss of their child. So there's a lot of themes of like mourning related to her, the movie and her current life, past life. And it was just weird. And I think anytime somebody takes a risk like that, especially the Oscars, I have to applaud it. Design Darlings: We like weird and cool. Not accidentally weird, but intentionally weird and cool. I wonder if she's studying to become a Death Duelist for like, for, you know, she's about to direct something. Like, I feel like there's something there. It's not for funsies, probably. Allie Miller: Yeah, intentional. Mmm. Right, I would like to think she's a very cerebral director and thinks very deeply about her subject. So I would assume it's just to further her knowledge about something for another project, yeah. One other shout out is, ⁓ Design Darlings: Yes, an emergency. Allie Miller: Correct me if I pronounce this name wrong, but Odessa Azzion, who was one of the lead actresses from Marty Supreme, she was wearing a spring 2016, or spring 2026 Valentina Ocachore. ⁓ And it was sort of opposite of Kate Hudson, where Kate Hudson was incredibly structured and put together, where she was, it was a sort of loose, of almost punk kind of coat dress. ⁓ Design Darlings: you me. Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: but she just wore it so well that just fit her style. She has kind of curly hair and she had this kind of like, don't care energy. And it sort of reflected that, but yeah. Design Darlings: and we love a rebellious vibe always. Especially in high fashion, like are high fashion and rebellion synonymous? I don't know, maybe they can be. That's a Caribbean Westwood question actually, think. Allie Miller: Yeah. Yeah. you Yeah, I think that's been a long, I think there's a long history of fashion. There's, think fashion by nature, fashion is an act of rebellion, right? And we can use fashion to project a lens of rebellion. I think where it gets tricky is high fashion, right? When you're thousands of dollars on an outfit to look rebellious when you. Design Darlings: Okay. Allie Miller: If you actually were like punk or grunge, you would be going to your local thrift store or like taking hand-me-downs and making them your own, right? So. Design Darlings: Right. Yes, you adopt the uniform of the hand. Like, yes, yes, it is a different, it's a different make. That's well, I mean, so the intention of design, the making of design, that's kind of actually a good segue into this Adobe and Nvidia partnership. ⁓ Because Adobe, right, like. ⁓ Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. We're gonna take a hard, we're taking a hard left here. We're going from fashion news to tech news. Design Darlings: girl ⁓ ⁓ what? ⁓ don't get me started on fashion and tech. OK, so like that, that's a that's a different rabbit hole. But Adobe, like, OK, so that is a I'm going to call it a makerspace for creators because you have the Adobe Creative Suite and they just announced a huge partnership with Nvidia. Tell me more about that. Allie Miller: Yeah. Yeah. So Nvidia, it is the most highly valued company in the world. It's currently valued at about $4.2 trillion. In comparison, Adobe is valued at $101 billion. Most major tech companies, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, they're valued in the trillion. So Nvidia, one of the kind of the biggest companies that maybe you've never heard of. Design Darlings: ⁓ Allie Miller: ⁓ But every about six months, Nvidia has these major tech conferences called GTC. So this past week, Nvidia GTC had their spring conference in San Jose. And throughout this conference, they're always pushing out announcements. The whole conference is just them saying, we're partnering with this company and this company and this company. And 99.9 % of the time, they announce partnerships with other major tech companies, right? Design Darlings: Yeah. Allie Miller: So the fact that Nvidia or the fact that Adobe was even like in the same breath as Nvidia GTC, I was like, what? Like what? What are you doing? So basically the press release came out that announced Nvidia and Adobe were going to... ⁓ sort of embark on a very quote unquote strategic partnership. They put out a press release on Monday. There's a lot of corporate jargony language in it. I think one thing to keep in mind with these press releases is they often use very... Design Darlings: Thank Allie Miller: optimistic and ostentatious language. There's just enough specificity to get you excited, but not so much specificity that you're going to get any real specifics on what the partnership means. But in essence, what this partnership says is that as Adobe will both continue and Design Darlings: Thank Allie Miller: double down on using Nvidia products. So Nvidia sells AI computing models, chips, cloud services, so things to run are. Photoshop in design illustrator basically using these AI proprietary AI tools to improve how Adobe products run so how generative fills can improve firefly any AI feature that Adobe has released Nvidia basically can can supercharge the ability of that tool to make it more effective more impactful more whatever so that sort of that's my like if you're if you're a designer who's not in tech that is my like teeny tiny design tech 101 of what Nvidia is and what this partnership means. But I think what's interesting is the language they use in this press release. a few kind of one quote really stood out to me. It says they will support quote, Design Darlings: Yeah. Allie Miller: best in class creative precision and control for creativity and marketing pipelines." quote. So again, very corporatey jargon. But essentially what I think is really interesting is Nvidia is essentially saying how can we use our products to ensure that Adobe users can make things that are more precise, that are more quote unquote accurate. where you can make more things faster for your... creative clients, your briefs, your whatever. And my worry, the thing that I am thinking a lot about is as we use technology to optimize creative workflows, do we further, we more and more lose the human in that. Like Nvidia is clearly saying we value things that are precise, that can be produced at high volume more than we do the human thumbprint. Design Darlings: Hmm. Allie Miller: that gets put into that design. Design Darlings: Well, I mean, as a former, I had a PR life. ⁓ So yes, the vague corporate like heightened jargon is so funny that you get like how many, how many insane words can we jam into one sentence? Yes. ⁓ I actually saw something recently saying that think about the things that you'd like to watch on your streaming services. ⁓ The future is going to be you picking Allie Miller: Mm. Corporate bingo. Design Darlings: a type of main character in a plot line and then like the red and like some, you know, some a cadre of other characters and immediately that show or that movie is going to be spun up for you and that's what you're going to buy. think about that. First of all, sounds nuts. But when you're thinking about this, like creative precision control, like that execution. Allie Miller: Mm. Design Darlings: It's sort of like they're trying to make a formula and an output for creativity. okay, Joseph Campbell wrote the hero's journey and we know and understand that. mean, can Shrek is a great model for the hero's journey. Like I could give you a million stories to follow the hero's journey. So it's like, is it just that you want something on demand? ⁓ I also think that something like this, the more it goes towards a machine made or a Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: you know, an AI made model, we're going to go back to that. I want something that's like a handheld camcorder feature. And of course they'll bake that in, right? Where you're like, ⁓ wait, this is an AI. It's got a ham handheld camcorder feeling to it. But I've been seeing you've got, right. You've got a point and a counterpoint. So as we move towards this super sleek output, you want, people do want something that's more handmade feeling, more authentic. And so can AI learn to make something? Allie Miller: Yep. Design Darlings: that has human touch or is it just going to be something that feels too overdone, too sleek? I'm curious about that and just how fast can we make something that's marketing directly to you instead of a marketing campaign that's like, hey, we're going to make this giant marketing campaign. It gets rolled out to everyone across the US. And then certain people don't like that. mean, hello, I teach. Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: And a marketing program, know, design management and marketing program. And we talk about those big marketing campaigns that have been flops or have been great successes. mean, like Super Bowl ads are a great example of here's a thing. They took a lot of time and effort to work on it. Is it going to hit? Yeah, it'll hit with some people. Others, it's not. But if the future is going to be hyper specific, hyper targeted marketing. are companies going to look at the things that you like and then say, oh, I'm going to make an ad that's like literally to the minuscule point targeted at you and see if you like it see if you buy it. That's kind of to think about. Allie Miller: Yeah, and I think what's really interesting about what you just said, Robin, talking about the ability to customize, right? The more you customize, the quicker you need to be able to make that infinite number of options. And one of the tools, two things specifically called out in this press release, one are the further development of 3D digital twins utilizing NVIDIA's Omniverse. Design Darlings: in Right. Hmm. Allie Miller: So basically Digital Twins, Digital Twin is a one-to-one digital replica. So think you can make a CAD of a shoe, a boat, t-shirt that you wanna buy from H &M, Omniverse is NVIDIA's proprietary software that allows for the building of Digital Twins. So I think about like, okay, let's say Robin, to your point, some company says, you know, Nike has a new shoe. They want anyone who wants to buy their shoe to be able to say, what is a shoe going to look like in my life, in my wardrobe? Can you use these 3D rendering, these digital twin or omniverse tools to then create an infinite number of combinations that the user can see how do these products fit into my life? And then where does the designer come in to have to basically Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: generate all those outputs for that user. ⁓ So, yeah. Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. I wonder what's actually what that's going to do in market segmentation. Like it right because like we were around when the original like Air Jordans dropped and you know kids had those they were kids with steel shoes from other kids. Allie Miller: Mm. Design Darlings: I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it happened and like, I think it probably still happens, but how are you marketing Air Jordans? Like, are they gonna still go after a specific demographic? Are they gonna try to sell Air Jordans to anyone they can? Like, I think about Martha Stewart and Snoop selling Skechers, like the slip-on Skechers, which are so great. Like, that's such a wonderful, fantastic marketing thing. Are they gonna try to say like, let's make our 3D Skecher shoes marketed? towards every demographic and then try to build to that point a bunch of ads that are like, hey, this shoe fits you and you and you and I'm going to find the perfect influencer that resonates with your demographic and put those shoes on them and see if you buy them. Like if we change the style a little bit, can we just do this really quickly and get them out there? And are they going to fly off the shelves? I don't know. Allie Miller: Mm. Mm hmm. Yeah. All right. So kind of to put a bow on this, think the sort of so what to this is we have to wait and see. You know, these announcements get made all the time and they can take. Design Darlings: Yeah. Allie Miller: months if not years to fully come to fruition, but I think my sort of call to action is I think as designers we can't be naive to the role that these big tech companies are going to play in our workflows and how we produce work. So I think it's important just to you don't have to become a tech bro to like care about this per se, but I think it is important that we as designers like keep tabs on what's happening because whether or not we like it it's going to impact how we do work and better to be informed than Design Darlings: Hmm. Yeah. Allie Miller: and to have to sort of react in the moment as it happens. Yeah. Design Darlings: Well, and your rights, like if you're using Adobe Creative Suite, are they gonna have rights to grab your content that you make because you made it with their product or something like that? ⁓ You know, there's a big thing about meta glasses recently. And if you're wearing meta glasses that meta has control, owns that content of whatever it is that you film with your meta glasses. that's like, that's shaking things up for people. ⁓ yeah, I guess, yeah, we'll stay tuned and see what happens next. They don't put that stuff in the press releases. Hi, we're gonna own your content. No, they leave that out. Allie Miller: Mm. Alright. No. ⁓ She said what she said! She said what she said, kids. Design Darlings: I said what I said, the toothpaste can't go back in the tube, but it's not a guarantee, it's a thought, it's a drive-by thought. ⁓ So, ⁓ my goodness. Allie Miller: Nope. Yeah. All right. Let's go to our Yeah, we're going to our main topic, Robin. Lead us. Design Darlings: ⁓ my goodness. Hopefully this doesn't get hijacked by AI. Let's talk about something that is old school. ⁓ my gosh. Yes. Okay, so coffee. I think coffee has been hijacked by design, which is okay. ⁓ And I don't know when coffee and design became besties or frenemies, depending on how you look at it. ⁓ But coffee culture as its own thing has been Allie Miller: Coffee robots? Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: I feel like it's been it went from being drip coffee from the 80s and some like espresso at ⁓ you know at a coffee shop to Becoming this thing that is everywhere. So Where can like so ⁓ My gosh, where do we even begin? Let's let's start with coffee. Okay coffees in our house coffee is also in coffee houses ⁓ and it was it's a ⁓ Allie Miller: Mm. Mm. Design Darlings: Beverage well, ⁓ my gosh, I'm not even gonna go on like the trade routes of coffee. Let's start with the origins of the coffee house. Go. Allie Miller: Yes, so before we get into our current relationship with coffee, we love a little history deep dive. And I think if coffee started, like I think a lot of really well designed things, they started because of a very specific function. Design Darlings: Hmm. Allie Miller: coffee started to, we started drinking coffee to help us stay awake. Specifically, some of the earliest kind of uses coffee really originated as part of a culture in sort of the Middle East, Central Asia, and it was a use to stay awake for prayer and religious practices, had a very sort of utilitarian function. And then we see in the 15th century, coffee becomes more secular because we Just wanted to stay awake for things and life and we want to have discussions and we start to see in the 15th century the first creation of what we would kind of consider the idea of a coffee shop where it was brewed and drank ⁓ in places where people could be together. There was sort of this phrase called schools of wisdom where it was really centered around the idea of people coming together and talking about really big ideas and you could spend hours in a location with colleagues, with friends, with political idealists, people to just talk about things and really have a third space for discussion and discourse. And then I think what's interesting is what we see is through just trade and expansion between... early cultures in the late 1500s, the sort of the first evidence of coffee coming into Europe is through Venice. So I think when we think about Italian coffee culture, there's a very clear lineage between the Venetians and trade of coffee from the Middle East into Venice. ⁓ And what I think was interesting is as it comes into Europe, it was met with a lot of sort of political kind of fraughtness. Design Darlings: Hmm. Allie Miller: because just like sort of what I mentioned earlier, these sort of schools of wisdom, people were drinking coffee and talking about things, right? They were talking about things that challenged the church and government and structural ways that society organized. A lot of people in positions of power didn't like people sitting around drinking coffee because that meant people were talking about ideas and they were using their brains. And when we think about ideas, we challenge the system quo or the status quo that challenges authority and that's scary to people. Oddly enough, it wasn't until one of a pope in the 1500s actually drank coffee and was like, oh, this actually tastes pretty good. And then he was like, okay, fine. can, we, I as the church, the Catholic church, I bless coffee. You can drink it. I no longer think it's evil. Which sort of literally was sort of the green light for Europe, like being more comfortable having coffee houses. It took the pope. kind of vouching for it. Yeah. Design Darlings: Wow, that's hilarious. ⁓ Well, and then, okay, so one of the most famous ⁓ coffee makers is the Bialetti, the mocha pot, ⁓ invented by an Italian ⁓ to literally make coffee from it. was actually, think, during the First World War where you could, it was easy, it was replicable, you didn't need a filter for it because it has a built-in filter. ⁓ During the Olympics, right? Wasn't... ⁓ Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. yeah the mocha pot, the little mocha pot guys, in their colorful outfits. Design Darlings: Yes, they all came out like Disney characters dressed as mocha pots because that is such a ubiquitous Italian design. Oh my gosh. And there's a lessy and all of that. So we do love our coffee to stay up late. Talk about coffee in college towns, staying up late, doing all nighters. So you and I came up, we're elder millennials from the 1900s. And I remember Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 1900s, I can't. Design Darlings: ⁓ my goodness. I remember going to in the early 2000s. I went to undergrad. I started in 2000 going to coffee shops. They were that third space and they had the manky couches and they always smelled like roasted beans. You know, I mean you left the coffee shop and you smelled like the coffee shop and but you went there to study to get out of the house because or out of the dorm and you sat there and you had your coffee and you wrote papers. ⁓ my gosh. This was back when you know Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Good Design Darlings: Chachi PT couldn't write your paper, but you sat and you worked on writing your paper or studying or doing all those things that, yes, you had to stay up for. ⁓ it wasn't... Social media hadn't really proliferated yet. So you weren't posting yourself at the coffee shop. You weren't taking selfies. You weren't ⁓ being loud on calls, doing the grind. You were just sitting there studying like you were with your friends hanging out, ⁓ trying to be in a focus space because... Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: You weren't going to have coffee and cookies in the library. So you would go to this third space ⁓ where you could, you could hang out and study or they would have the nights for I would, I've played playing an open mic night at a coffee shop ⁓ singing and playing guitar, you know, or doing like poetry slams. Yes. That was a whole, it was a whole thing. And then, ⁓ when did the Starbucksification of coffee shops happen? I'm trying to remember when Allie Miller: Hmm, beatniks? Slam poetry? Design Darlings: We didn't have Starbucks in college at Florida State. We did not have that. Allie Miller: Yeah, so I think there's kind of a, everything's sort of coalescing there, sort of the Starbucksification, I think we'll get into this in a little bit, what we find, well, even World War I, I think what's interesting is there's always sort of this conversation between coffee, industrialization, and sort of. discourse, like these three things kind of coming together. Because obviously, went well, one world, two, but you've great innovations in manufacturing that allows for products to make coffee differently, right? But with Starbucks, so typically Starbucks historically was just a wholesale bean distributor. And it wasn't until their CEO Howard Schultz came on board in 1986, that he really made the pivot where he said, we're going from just selling beans to people to now we Design Darlings: Okay. Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: are going to be the place where people come to drink the coffee from the beans. And so it really was between the heyday of Starbucks is between the 1980s and 2000. That's when you see this massive boom, right? That's when you, as a college student, went from going to any old mom and pop coffee shop to having the idea of coffee being sort of a ubiquitous part of just like Gen X and elder millennial culture. And then I think also too at that time, again, Design Darlings: No. Mm. Allie Miller: you see the intersection of the internet, right? So it's another, there's these like inflection points in coffee culture where you have young people wanting to congregate and talk. You have technology advancing. In this case, you had like internet cafes, wifi cafes, right? And then you have coffee, right? Coffee is a sort of this binding mechanism that sort of brings people together. Yeah, I think. Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. I was like, we didn't have Wi-Fi when I was in college. Girl, you had to find a cord and plug it into your computer. We had ethernet back in the day. So even then you'd... Allie Miller: Okay, maybe not in the 2000s yet, but eventually you had internet cafes. Design Darlings: early. ⁓ I'm like, when did my happening coffee because that is what happened. All of a sudden a coffee house is a place to do business. And then you like this bro explosion of people wanting to be overheard in coffee houses being like, you know, ⁓ here I am. ⁓ Here I am doing business. I'm grinding at the grind and everyone's like, ⁓ please be quiet. ⁓ But yeah, I feel like Allie Miller: Yeah. Yeah. I think about too, like the movie, like You Got Mail, and, you know, Tom Hanks is talking about how, you know, his big Fox bookstore is gonna be just like the biggest thing. And like one of the selling points is that there's gonna be coffee there. Like this coffee became a selling point for businesses. It became sort of an economic engine for what made something novel and different. Yeah. Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. Remember we would do that too. We'd go to Borders or Barnes and Noble because they had coffee there and you could sit in the cafe and that was like another place that you could go if the if the coffee shops got too busy around ⁓ Finals or midterms or something like that? Hmm hmm, and then okay, so then grad school Ten years later I feel like that was the rise of hipsters. I mean, okay So the word hipster has been around since gosh like the 20s or 30s when they called people hep cats Allie Miller: Yeah. But yeah. Design Darlings: And then, um, and then it evolved. Yeah. In the forties and fifties, like people who were cool or they like had a counterculture vibe to them. And, um, and then it became sort of like a, like a dig if you were a hipster because you were trying too hard. But, um, also hipsters, they were sort of like this anti, so we had the rise of the internet cafe and like 2009, 2010, you had the hipsters that were. Allie Miller: Okay. Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: Somehow like they were all all the bike mechanics also worked in coffee shops and They it was like Allie Miller: Mmm. The bike mechanic to single brew coffee pipeline is strong. Yeah. Yeah. Design Darlings: I think they're like the same Venn diagram. Like if you look at that Venn diagram, it is a circle. ⁓ And it was funny because then you also saw like this, and we, mean, it's not like hipsters didn't exist always. We had them in the 2000s, but there was a, it was like a different movement. And I think we were also getting, speaking of technology, yes, you always had the Bialetti, ⁓ you had the Mocha Pot, but you started to get interest in making these like, single origin brews like you every everyone was like, well, if you have you don't want drip coffee, you want your coffee in a French press or you want to make it as a pour over like you started to have these different ways to make coffee. So it wasn't just coffee. had like a new bend to it. It wasn't just and so that hipster coffee culture became synonymous with something that was unique and hyper artisanal and it was crappy. ⁓ my God. The word artisanal was in everything for a while. Like it was artisanal bread. ⁓ my gosh. Allie Miller: Mmm. Craft and artisanal. God. Design Darlings: artisanal everything. And so that became its own artisanal coffee movement where you didn't just have brew. You had all these other things that were happening and you could buy them at home. it became, you you used to have to go to me if you wanted an espresso, you were going to go to shop for that unless your family wanted to invest a huge chunk of change and an espresso maker at home. And then you had the advent. Like, I don't even know. I have to look it up. We're Nespresso makers. You know, you have the pod that is like, here, we figured out how to pressurize a countertop coffee maker and you don't have to do all the cool things they do in the coffee shop. it was like we went from enjoying coffee to making coffee because when you were making coffee by hand, that was a different type of appreciation and awareness for how you were making your coffee. And it was just another way to be an individual, which is, mean, I'm not mad at it. was. it's cool to think and then ⁓ and then it was also like we went i feel like from making really unique coffee into like craft beers all of a sudden the craft beer also like you weren't just home brewing your coffee you were also gonna home brew your beer and you were gonna make things yes yes Allie Miller: you You're kombucha, you're just bread, yeah. Well, there's, you know, there's at the same time, right, you have coffee culture happening, right? You have beer culture happening. I think in design too, there's this sort of, this was also like the happening the same, the rise of like hustle culture. And for me, like hustle culture, Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: a lot of when it came to how to build your portfolio and how to talk about design and even how ⁓ to ... Social media branding really was becoming part of a conversation, like how do you brand yourself online? The word that coming up again and again and again is process and making. It became for you to brand yourself as somebody who Design Darlings: Mm. Wow. Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: was intellectual, that was credible, that could be trusted, you had to show that you understood the process of making the thing you were making. And so I think in design, lot of the work, at least in design school, the time that I was doing was about how are you showing your process? But I think at the same time, we see that reflected in coffee culture, in brewery culture, right? Because you're going to coffee shops where you can see the coffee being made. Like it's about the coffee shop, almost becomes less about musty, cushy, plush couches and quirky interiors, the coffee shop is like a factory. The coffee shop becomes an industrial place where you can talk about the process of making the coffee. And even like beer, right? We weren't just like going to bars or going to the liquor store and buying beer out of a fridge. We were going to breweries, right? We were going to places where the placemaking was about seeing where the artifact was being created, not just getting the and product and being okay with that. Design Darlings: Yeah, well, and by seeing the process, you knew it was good. The definition of good and good beer, good coffee, good things was like, ⁓ we're going to deconstruct this and have an awareness of it. And by taking that process, now we're creating something that, yes, it's artisanal, OK, because of the awareness of what's being put into it and how we're making those things is creating a better product for you at the end. Also, sustainability, I feel like. Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: ended up having a resurgence ⁓ with that because you were also considering where did your coffee come from? Where is it being ⁓ grown? How is it being grown? And so there was also this idea that if you were making things yourself, you were having a better impact on the sustainability of a product or it wasn't just being shipped. It was almost like we moved away from the big industrialization to smaller, more localized. ⁓ Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: businesses owning that end-to-end process. And sustainability is really about what is your end-to-end design ⁓ and how are you doing that in like cradle to grave sort of thing. So you could show that and that's so much about the design process as well. Like here's where we started, here's where we ended. It's not just ⁓ a finite pipeline, it's something that's circular. so that circular, ⁓ circular economy is also sustainable when you know where things are coming from. how they're being made and then you're, it is kind of like a local factory thing. I like that. Allie Miller: Yeah, well, okay, help me unpack this. Let me know if this makes sense. So I'm thinking about you were talking about showing making like the sort of mini industrialization. I'm thinking a lot about the conversation we just had about Nvidia, where I think this sort of hyper fixation on showing the sort of the factory of making coffee, of making beer, of making small local products. Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: It's about the machinery of how you make things. And the more we focus on the making, the industrialization of the product, we lose, for me, in these coffee shops, we lost the human element. We went from the soft, cushy. Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: know, kitschy coffee shop to the sort of factory coffee shop that no longer was like hospitable to people, right? Coffee shops were no longer like comfortable places to sit in. And then I think to look back to the Nvidia conversation, like, was this sort of an early precursor to, if we're focusing so much on the efficiency and the making of the product, do we start to devalue Design Darlings: Yeah. Allie Miller: the human, the imperfection, the human fingerprint. But then there's this weird kind of irony where it's like, to your point, what you were just talking about, you're like, it was to show the human element, but to show the human element through sort of an industrial lens. Design Darlings: Hmm. Well, it's almost like reclaiming the end-to-end making, so... Allie Miller: Mm. Design Darlings: Because if you're going, all right, I think that's the difference between the coffee. Like when you go to Starbucks, you're not really there to hang out. Like if you go through the morning grind, you're not there because you're like, ⁓ I'm going to linger and then my coffee is going to come out. Where if you're going to, like if I'm going to a coffee shop in Savannah, you know, if I'm there and I'm about to hang out and study or read or meet with someone to work on a project, it doesn't matter to me how fast my coffee comes out. I'm not there in a rush. I'm not there trying to have a drive-through moment. I'm there because I'm there Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: and I respect the process of however long it takes because they're not trying to optimize that, but like, I'm not saying they're trying to, they're not trying to be slow, but they're not trying to optimize the process for like pumping out as much coffee as they can. They're gonna take their time and get it to you. I think with like the craft beer making, they are saying instead of going from a place where you don't see your beer, you don't see it made. Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: these giant vats, they're saying, ⁓ look, we've made it here and because we made it personally, it's going to taste better. There's like love that has gone into this. think with people like their local Starbucks coffee shop because they know their baristas, like you have a relationship there. I think it's the relationship element that got put back into ⁓ or that is maybe balanced in shops. Like there's a lot of Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: I think modern coffee shops, we've talked about this and we've seen some videos around like brutalism in coffee shop design where they all feel like they popped up in a former like warehouse district and they have polished concrete floors and there's metal like it, you know, it looks like it got popped up and ⁓ but then they all started to look the same kind of no matter where you went in the world. And so and I think that's because of social media and people saw things. All right. Everything was for the gram. Everything got Allie Miller: Yes. Design Darlings: need. And there is an aesthetic to that. So it's sort of like, what is the aesthetic of ⁓ the human touch? Some of it don't think you can capture really well. It's not an Instagrammable moment. Like, you can take a picture of that coffee. ⁓ But there ⁓ is that funny balance between what makes something original and authentic. It used to be that concrete floor because you took over an empty warehouse. Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: you popped up a coffee shop in there because there were other maker spaces. People were coming in and you could go in 3D print something or you could go use a CNC machine or whatever that was for those who know what that is. You could go and do those. Yes, which is great. ⁓ But there was like a revival of those spaces that hadn't existed for a long time. ⁓ And I think like you were saying with hustle culture of people. Allie Miller: Computer numerically controlled. Design Darlings: people who didn't make things with their hands, but they wanted to be seen as makers, taste makers. They were seeing coffee shops, talking loud, taking pictures ⁓ to be noticed in what had become a maker space now is like a grinder space where you're like, ⁓ yeah, I'm here to grind because I'm making things, I'm making things happen. And yeah. Allie Miller: Hmm. Yeah. the grind, the mind grind. Also, can I just, can we just take a quick sidebar? I would just like to rant about seating in coffee shops. I have no point to this other than to say I'm angry, but I'm glad that we are turning the tides. ⁓ Coffee shops, if you want people to congregate, can we stop making Design Darlings: always. Allie Miller: either cement seating and or chairs that have no back or lumbar support. If I have to go to one more trendy bougie, I don't care how many eater articles there are, or like James Beard Awards, your coffee shop has, can we please bring lumbar support back to coffee shops? I need that, please. Make my back comfortable again, okay? Design Darlings: Hahaha ⁓ my gosh. Well, you know, in the- I would like to, well, you know what? This is funny. You're saying this because I was thinking of the coffee shops we used to have near our office. ⁓ And there's one that was like around the corner. was like one at the bottom of the building. And then there was one around the corner. And it's beautiful inside, but it's so loud because it's like floor to ceiling glass windows, floor is tile. Everything in there is a hard surface. Like you're saying, it's a hard surface. So you can't hang out and even have like a nice conversation with someone because you're shouting. You're like, am I at a bar? Is it is it 2 a.m. and you leave? You're like, wow, that coffee shop was super loud. Like the softness of spaces and like Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: furniture absorbs all that sounds so you can hang out for longer. You know what? I want to know. I bet there is an inverse relationship. I'm totally guessing this is me maybe lying between like Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Design Darlings: people will linger longer in the softer spaces? Do you think that you don't sell as much volume of coffee because you're not turning it over quickly because people are lingering? Or if it was more comfortable, would you stay longer and like order more and eat more? Like, because you're not going to hang out in a coffee shop all day. Like, no one has that kind of time. So if you make it more comfortable, will people hang out longer or what? What do you think? Allie Miller: Hmm. No. So I think I'll answer this in two ways Yes, I think if there are less places to sit and your you design your coffee shop around Volume of how many cups can I sell an hour? Yeah, you objectively or it's gonna be more focused on getting more people through the door in a short amount of time now Do I think that every coffee shop intentionally thinks about that? No Design Darlings: Okay. Mm. Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: I think if you're like a Starbucks or a Pete's Coffee or name your major coffee chain, yeah, you have whole business teams that are thinking about how do I design this coffee shop to optimize the flow of customers? How many widgets can I sell? Yeah, there's dozens of people with MBAs who think hours and hours about that question. Design Darlings: Thanks. Allie Miller: But do I think your local coffee shop that has a staff of like five Gen Z kids working the register, I shouldn't say kids, five Gen Z people working the register and you open it up with some designers and some friends, I don't think you guys are thinking about like. Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: I don't think the small mom and pop coffee shops are thinking about it from a business lens. I think the successful small businesses think about that question. But I don't think that's a conscious question on a lot of coffee shop owners' minds, which is probably why coffee shops, just like bars and restaurants, a lot of them have really high turnover rates of closing. I think that's, you know, I think a lot of people open food industry businesses without necessarily a business mindset. ⁓ Design Darlings: No. Yeah. Allie Miller: but that's a whole other just sort of theory and tangent I have. ⁓ But yeah, but yes, I think you can design around volume versus designing around place making and being a space that people wanna be. ⁓ Yeah, in grad school, one of my favorite coffee shops, it was just the biggest hot, it was like kind of a French. Design Darlings: Hmm. Yeah. Allie Miller: Inspired cafe. It was kind of quirky. It was kind of vibe II was kind of industrial It was just like 20 different aesthetics put into it But it had a good balance of places to sit and places to put your books out and they had Wi-Fi and but you could still run in there and get a cup of coffee in five minutes you didn't have to like wait 20 minutes to get a cup of coffee, so Yeah, I think the best coffee shops figure out how to do kind of all of the above Design Darlings: I'm late. both the balance, the Venn diagram of like efficiency plus comfort. ⁓ mean, Tate's doing a good job of that. I'm sad that Foxtrot closed. I was like, ⁓ my God. ⁓ But yeah, I feel like they have that really nice ⁓ Venn diagram of comfort and efficiency. And there's some in Savannah like that too, like Coffee Fox has a couple locations now where you can get the right mix of food and you can hang out. And there's like the different sort of seating in Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Design Darlings: an arrangement that is like has a cozy vibe, but also there's efficiency to it. So maybe that's the best new space is ⁓ the blend of both. Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right, I'm wondering are things coming back full circle? We had the Starbucksification, which was all about volume, and then we had this hyper-industrialization of coffee. And then now in 2026, I think the new trend is we're trying to come back to that sort of like the friend central perk feeling. Design Darlings: Mm-hmm. Allie Miller: with maybe some European coffee shop influences, but you can still have high volume, but it also doesn't make people feel like there isn't only like five places to sit. Like you can still actually sit there for an hour if you want. Design Darlings: Definitely. Cool. This makes me want a little extra coffee. I'm loving it. Coffee? Some coffee talk? ⁓ my gosh, what a throwback. ⁓ Allie Miller: Who are we? Coffee talk makes me think of ⁓ sweater weather. Design Darlings: Remember? Sweater weather. Yeah, coffee talk. Well, oh my gosh. That Mike Myers skit was so funny and like the guest that he got to come on. Remember when Madonna joined? When Madonna did a cameo with coffee talk? Oh my gosh, the Prince of Tides is neither a prince nor a tide. Discuss. There's like always a little thing, a little like query for that show. I'm overclemped. Oh my gosh. What a great, great thing. Allie Miller: coffee talk. Mmm. ⁓ that was a tough talk. I'm a GLE- Okay. Design Darlings: Well, all right, girl, think we covered coffee. I think we did a good job. I know that whether you're a boomer with a Mr. Coffee or you're an iced macchiato swirl, the ice, know, girly, or you're a chemist making your chemist coffee or what else? How many other ways are there to make coffee? There's a lot. Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you have a favorite coffee accessory? Or like an accoutrement? Like if we're thinking like a designed object, like what is your favorite coffee? I am a 12 cup Mr. Coffee drip coffee. I'm like the least fussy person when it comes to making coffee and I love to make coffee in 20 ways. Like what is your favorite coffee making accessory, tool that you have? Design Darlings: moving. Thank okay. There, well because yes, I have a French press and an espresso and a drip coffee maker and a pour-over and a Bialetti. ⁓ but. Allie Miller: You don't have any more than that? You only have six different ways to make coffee? Like... Design Darlings: Well, I might have another. ⁓ but okay, it depends on if I'm drinking hot or iced and what's going on. But one of the things I love the most, I actually have a frother. And it's an Ikea frother. It's super simple, but it's speedy. And I actually don't really use it always to froth milk. I use it sometimes to like mix things or I'll use it because if the coffee's coming out of the espresso or the espresso comes out of an espresso, I should say it's frothy, it's foamy. I don't need to worry about it, but I have this cool little, Allie Miller: Mmm. Mmm. Design Darlings: It's Korean actually. It's like a little, it's like a vase pour pitcher thing. It's like handheld and it has the perfect angles on it so that if I use the frother in it and I do want to froth milk or I want to make, you know, I'm going to make a cappuccino and I need to steam something, it has a perfect angle so that as I whip it with the little IKEA, the frother, the twirler, that thing, it like makes it perfectly. And so I would say that's my favorite accessory mix. They were bought separately and I combined them by accident and I love them. That was a terrible description of them both probably. I'll to take a picture and post it so you can see. Allie Miller: Yeah, I'm trying to look up. ⁓ yeah, I want to make sure I got it right. ⁓ Again, I'm not necessarily like, I drink coffee as a means to get caffeine. I'd say when it comes to like accessories, I'm actually really more of like a tea accessory person. ⁓ But I think I have never ⁓ owned one, but I think my kind of design object that I love is I've always wanted ⁓ Design Darlings: Okay. Allie Miller: One of the Michael Graves teapots Yeah, has like the little bird on it and the little handle and you can get the obviously you can get remakes But I was once at an antique store years ago, and I found an original Michael Graves teapot it was like $500 or something. I was like I'm not paying $500 for this but Design Darlings: ⁓ with a special whistle. Mm-hmm. Wow. Allie Miller: it had the signature on it and I had the original stamp. Design Darlings: Wow, those are like $400 and they have the special bird whistle that sits on the end so when the kettle is done, it's not screeching at you. Yes, because that's actually when I boil water in my teapot, I leave the end cap open so that it won't screech because another room are doing something. You're like, ⁓ my gosh, it's too much. It's much too much. Allie Miller: Yeah, it goes... It's it's pleasant, you know? Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Any closing thoughts on coffee before we close out? Design Darlings: ⁓ I am feeling ready for another well It's decaf time. It's late in the afternoon, so it's time for decaf. I actually, I am a big decaf girlie because I, if I have too much caffeine, I'm just too jittery. So I mix it up between my, and actually, you know what? I'm going to call this person out. We used to work with him. His name is Steven. He moved and he used to make fun of me when we would work in, ⁓ we would work in 901 and he'd be like, ⁓ I can't believe you drink decaf. Like what sort of self-respecting person drinks decaf? And he would, Allie Miller: Mm. What? Design Darlings: weird, he would just give me a hard time about it. I was like, Steven, listen, this is the way to go. And then he started roasting his own beans because he like, talk about an artisanal darling. Steven is an artisanal darling. And so he, then he got onto decaf and like years later, he was like, listen, I have to tell you, I apologize. Allie Miller: I'm like, no, that's insane. No. I was wrong, you were right. Design Darlings: So, and actually last year he, I was talking with him and he roasted me some decaf beans and sent them to me. And it's cool because he has this website where you pick your bean, they're green and you can pick your country of origin and like the flavor profiles and all of that. So he, picked them and he roasted them for me and sent them. And that's one of the coolest coffee experiences I've had was Steven roasting beans. I'm gonna have to send in this podcast so we can listen to it. now, ⁓ my gosh. Allie Miller: Ooh. We'll a fan. We'll get a fan. ⁓ All right. So on that note, we're going to close out with our final segment. Design Darlings: the best. Allie Miller: as a nod to our theme of coffee today, our design moment of culture. So this is where we pick a symbol, an object, an interaction, or a system that we feel like has left an indelible mark on our cultural consciousness and exemplifies the intersection of design and coffee. Drabba, do you have one or would you like me to go first? Okay. Design Darlings: Hmm. I want you to go first. Allie Miller: All right, I'm also, I'm gonna, and this doesn't have to be movie, I know last week we talked about movies, but my ultimate coffee cultural moment is, as the basic white woman, is Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1961, the opening credit, one of the most opening credits of any movie of the 20th century, Audrey Hepburn in her gorgeous Givenchy little black dress at 5 a.m. walks out of her cab and into the front window of Tiffany's with her croissant and her quintessential New York bodega coffee cup, dips her little croissant. fantasizes about owning a Tiffany's bracelet and then, you know, walks back to her little Upper East Side apartment, you know, sleeps the day away before she goes and, you know, continues on her partying, ⁓ gad about lifestyle. So, it just, it's everything. It's object, it's fashion, it's systems, it's New York, it's iconography, ⁓ yeah. It's coffee culture. Design Darlings: I love it. I think, I think it's funny that we look at coffee as like, it's an adult thing. Like it's an adult culture. It's a moment. I really love an elf when he drinks coffee for the first time and he's like, oh, oh, he hates it. And then when he gets sent to the mail room, he sees the guy pouring the booze and the coffee and he's like, warp and coffee. Why didn't I think of that? And then he starts drinking it. He's like, so it's clear, you know, he could have a taste for. Allie Miller: Yeah. Yes ⁓ yeah. Design Darlings: alcohol, but it's funny to that whole like we, you know, when you first get into coffee, people tend to like it really sweet ⁓ before they get into, you know, your palate develops into the flavors. It's also cool when I ⁓ started to develop, they say your palate for red wine and coffee develops together and it's those things together, which I feel like is also part of the whole like college coming of age, like you're developing your flavor. Allie Miller: Oooooh! I mean, what person's first favorite wine is an either like Moscato or Framsea? Design Darlings: HAHAHAHA Allie Miller: You Design Darlings: ⁓ God, Boon's Farm. ⁓ Yes, no, it's really funny. Like that's that entry point. ⁓ Man, and so that elf moment was so, it's funny. Like moving into this adult world that he doesn't really understand and drinking coffee. And then him taking Zoe Deschanel to the Tarot book. He's like, he has her drink the coffee and she's like, he was like, what is it? And she's like, crappy cup of coffee. like, no, it's the world's best. that, ⁓ gosh. Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Thanks, no. Yeah, and then he sees the sign and he runs into the store and he's like, congratulations on having the world's best coffee. The naiveness, but just joy in his, he just wants everyone to be happy and he just wants to congratulate people. I love, oh. Design Darlings: Yes. The naivete is adorable. But I think that's a great way to say, look, coffee and design is all about like taste and uniqueness and like coffee being an indicator of your personal taste, whether that's through your like accoutrement and the mugs that you have or the place that you go to get your coffee and enjoy it. That's a really beautiful thing of coffee by design is that you get to be the person who's making and tinkering with the things that you like. So. It's a great way to have individual design. Allie Miller: All right. Well, on that note, go get your cup of coffee and this has been a lovely coffee chat. Design Darlings: I'll drink to them. It has. I had enjoyed a coffee as we were recording. So we'll see you next week. Allie Miller: Alright, ta ta, bye darling. Design Darlings: Bye, darling.