The Mystery Coffee Shop: Cup in the Name of Love

Can you name and locate this coffee shop? :)


Clue: They display paper cups designed by their very customers!


Yesterday, my friend Kiwee and I went all the way to Manila to visit this Korean Coffee Shop that she recently discovered. 


In fact, I had to use all three trains and jeeps in order to reach this place and then go home. Yes, we traveled all the way for this lone coffee shop. Food is a great motivator! I have to say its homey ambiance made it all worth the "hassle."

The shop owner is indeed very hands on with the coffee shop's decors. We saw her adding new Christmas decors while we were at the store. All their walls have paper artwork, their tables have photographs and even their curtains have adorable line drawings! But the design element that really struck me those simple paper cups that add a personalized touch to the coffee shop. 

This coffee shop encourages customers to design their own paper cups and add to the store's paper cup display. Here are some of the paper cup designs that stood out for me:

Don't you think these designs are amazing? According to the paper cup, that's Carl Graham on the right. Probably he's referring to the American entrepreneur, Carl Graham Fisher? I'm not quite sure.

There are also cheesy paper cups with personal "I love you" messages and scary paper cups! That's one great Nightmare Before Christmas drawing. 

There are also paper cups that try to be "philosophical" or bordering corny :P Weeeeeeh. 

And of course there are inspirational paper cups as well. I really love this message :) Hmm.. this reminds me a lot of the site Things We Forget. That post-it campaign is based in Singapore and I think we could replicate that here using a different medium, paper cups. Sounds like a great idea? :)

These paper cups are then displayed all over the coffee shop. These cups are placed on shelves, hanging from shelves and some are stacked on top of one another. Some paper cups are even located on top of the store's entrance. That's how prevalent these personalized paper cups are in this Korean coffee shop.

These are just simple paper cups but they surprisingly add such a comforting feel to the place. I don't know if it's just me, but designing a cup for the coffee shop made me feel like I am part of the store as well. It made me feel at home since I left my mark there. 

Of course we couldn't pass up the opportunity of adding design elements to the coffee shop so Kiwee and I designed our own paper cups as well. 


For lovers out there, I think designing paper cups together can be romantic. Well I think doing arts together can be so romantic, don't you agree? :)


Anyway, here are the designs that Kiwee and I came up with: 

Kiwee and Smarla's Paper Cup Design: The Couple Paper Cups 

Couple Paper Cups! 

We wanted our designs to stand out despite our apparent lack of hand drawing skills so we made a Couple Paper Cup Design. It's inspired by those cheesy couple shirts that we sometimes see couples wearing in malls. :P 

Cup Telephone (photo courtesy of imagemarkonline.com)

To make the design witty, we connected the two paper cups with the string from those childhood Cup Telephones. Get it, two paper cups connected by a cup telephone?


I know ours isn't as a great as the others but we just made the concept cute so that the store owners will keep these two paper cups in display. I hope they do!


Sorry for the shameless blog plugging in the paper cups. For the record, it was Kiwee's idea. Hahaha. :) 


So what do you think of our designs? 

Have you guessed the name and the location of this coffee shop? :) Leave your guess in the comments section. 


I'll reveal the name of this shop tomorrow. :)


PS. In case you didn't get the title, it's The Supremes' song, "Stop In The Name of Love." I know the blog entry title is corny! I actually came up with cornier "cup" titles :P

• Why do you build me up butterCUP? (The Foundations Song - I know, not creative at all!)
• You cupped me at hello (You had me at hello - weeeeh corny)
• Cup a little bit closer baby (A line from 2 Become 1)

~It's the little sweet notes everyday that matter. :)~