#merzi

[lesbian-writes-tonight-at-4]

The Spring Thaw

Shaking off the winter depression with good food, sunshine, people/tourist watching, and an odd encounter. Try it, its good for you.

[sgottschling-blog]

Some imitation with your sandwich - the dark side of the Era of Design

Way back in May, Adam Swann declared that we had entered an Era of Design, in a Forbes article that still gets tweeted even a month after its initial publication. 

His argument, that folks now crave well designed experiences and the brands that succeed are those that offer them, was refreshing because it signaled an end to what was so long an accepted consequence of Big Business – design decisions birthed from efforts to cut costs rather than enrich lives, with results ranging from bland to outright depressing. The sort of thing documented in all its dystopic glory by folks like James Howard Kunstler and Lewis Baltz.

But while corporation and audience alike are discovering the benefits of embracing design, the movement has a dark side. Many companies, seeing the need to become “design focused” but lacking  a thorough understanding of what a design focus actually means, turn to their competitors for inspiration. And create the same bland category conventions the Design Era sought to vanquish in the first place.

To illustrate my point, we needn’t look beyond the “fast casual” category, home to restaurants like Chipotle, Noodles & Company, and Panera.

The majority of fast casual restaurants serve alongside their food a helping of clean modern design. Interiors inviting enough to encourage folks to linger after the coffee has run dry. No more plastic cushioning that says “leave quickly!” A near revolution in the use of public space.

But describing these interiors simply as “clean and modern” doesn’t quite cut it. They’re clean and modern in a very specific way, an aesthetic that echoes in facsimile fashion from one restaurant to the next.

Look at these pics, all interiors from four different fast casual joints, and you’ll see a continuing cast of visual motifs. The open ceiling with exposed innards, the rows of minimalist rectangular tables, the interplay between chrome and wood, the warm color palette. It almost looks like four angles from a single megarestaurant.

  Cosi

Merzi

Noodles and Company

Chipotle

With this imitation of visual elements from one restaurant to the next, the aesthetic cues become more than merely “good looking” or “comfortable” or “inviting.” They become a signifier of the legitimacy of the restaurant itself. Like the illustrated barn on organic yogurt to which I referred in my last post, they serve as a visual membership card, a sign to their audience of their worthiness in the category.

Moreover, clinging to that one aesthetic is a convenient way for the restaurants to align themselves with what Richard Florida hailed as the “creative class" and what Douglas Holt calls the "cultural capital cohort." Ever since Starbucks latched onto the modern/industrial aesthetic back in the 90s, the visual motifs I discussed above have come to signify a sort of creative affluence. Folks who, despite their creature comforts, reject corporate dronehood by seeking out sophisticated cultural expressions. And the use of this aesthetic serves as a way to claim membership to that culture.

Those three elements together—the coziness of the aesthetic itself, the legitimizing effects of following the category conventions, and the desire to appeal to the creative class— make it incredibly tempting for restaurants to adorn themselves with wood and chrome, especially for newcomers who otherwise would face difficulty gathering a following.

Take Merzi, for example, a relatively new fast casual place in DC that focuses on Indian cuisine. In one writeup, founder Qaiser Kazmi describes the potential challenges of acclimating a new audience to his restaurant's "exotic" offerings. But step inside Merzi, and it will hardly seem exotic at all. The space follows almost exactly the category template, marching in step with Chipotle, Noodles & Company, SweetGreen, etc. It places Merzi immediately inside that milieu, taking something otherwise “foreign” and making it legible.

On face, this legibility is a good thing. It creates a sort of culinary democracy in which different ideas and nationalities share the same social space, united by their love for minimal lines and the copious use of wood.

But on the other hand, the mutual embrace of the exact same aesthetic threatens to muddle the category. If restauranteurs feel that following the category discourse is the only way to appear legitimate and gain a following, there will be no incentive to create new, enriching experiences. The best effects of the Era of Design—using corporate resources to make lives more rewarding—would subside. We’d have a new sort of blandness instead.

So I end with a call for companies to look closely at what they mean when they claim they embrace “good design.” Will they take a hard look at their products, their visual presences, and design them from the ground up? Or will they imitate the aesthetics of their peers in fear of appearing illegitimate? Let’s hope it’s the former.

[saraiphotography]

Merzi Indian food in DC.

[backdroptoadventure]

After my brother and I left the Newseum, we walked around DC to find a place to eat. We went into this random place called Merzi. It was soooo good. The place reminded me of Chiptole, but with Indian cuisine. I love Indian food if you didn't know.. yeah, so I recommend this place for anyone looking for a quick bite in DC.

There's been a lot going on my mind lately so I think a long blog post is needed. That will come later in the week when I have time.. I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO NOW ):