Wok This Way is a quick service cafe serving traditional Asian cuisines with innovative combinations of locally sourced vegetables. The client brief given to us was simple, they wanted to create a cafe that would have an oriental look and feel and would also have an overall strong sense of identity as a space that will stand out in a neighborhood which is overly crowded with restaurants and cafes. Our idea was to create a space that would go along with the kind of food Wok this Way offers- simple, clean, organic, while also creating a bright and inviting cafe that adds a whimsical pop of orange to the block, as orange is their brand colour.

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Since it was a tiny space of roughly 350 sq.ft. with a high ceiling, we wanted to create a more intimate experience while bringing out the oriental element in a subtle way. A combination of pale wooden seating and table tops along with white walls and black ceiling, set against an orange wall, can be seen to make the space look bigger and brighter. To add the informality of a street like feel, we used grey terrazzo floor tiles throughout the space along with lantern like lighting. To have maximum visibility, the entire cafe facade has clear glass panels with a combination of orange powder coated aluminium sections and solid paneling at the top and bottom.

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We worked closely with the client to come up with all of the restaurant’s graphic applications, adapting the existing identity with new iconography for signage, menus, partition wall art to shop front etched graphics with all pattern work inspired by and adapted from traditional Asian print designs. We wanted to avoid clichéd references to Chinese culture in India, and thus refrained from using obvious traditional patterns or symbols anywhere in the space. Instead we used contemporary elements to redefine the Asian design, like the use of cane as back rests and within the kitchen wall partition and wall art using different  patterns and line graphics.

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​Thus the material palette used in the space consists of neutral colours of ash wood laminate, grey terazzo floor, white walls with hints of orange throughout. Overall the design is kept simple by using geometrical shapes, clean graphics and arches set against a vibrant orange backdrop and lots of plants throughout the space.