“DAILY” CUBAN DELI
CUBAN COFFEE SHOP – Art/Corporate Design Project
In 1998 Cuba has been a country in which the profession of art director does not exist. There were neither brand-name products nor chain stores with their own corporate identity, nor magazines or advertising, except for propaganda. The state was in the process of overseeing the first private businesses: people who were pouring café cubano out of thermos bottles into plastic cups and roasted peanuts (maní) or salted banana chips (platanos fritos) into homemade bags to sell on the street. Regarding this project, it has been an imagination how cubans, who had grown up without our western traditions, would establish businesses by imitating something they knew only from afar.
The first corporate identity: made on a computer smuggled to Cuba by an uncle from Miami. The family helped putting together the products' packages using inkjet printouts and coloured paper, and the mother sewed corporate fashion for the service staff on a decrepit sewing machine – so that the first cuban coffee shop, located in a ruin, could soon expand into a chain…
Life offers several misunderstandings, so it would not be in the least surprising if the name DAILY, (symbolising everyday repetition) really did arise from a misunderstanding of the word DELI.
"Land Unter" café in Hamburg's Oevelgoenne district proved to be a suitable place to make the DAILY Cuban Deli come true for one day.
ART PROJECT/ Corporate design / Various items & graphics / Photos: Stephan Göttlicher / Cuba & Hamburg, 2000
DAILY Café Cubano
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DAILY Boreness
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DAILY GAMES
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DAILY MEMORY DESIGN
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Sachet of sugar DAILY AÇÚCAR DE CANA
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DAILY Business
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DAILY "WAIT-DRESS" Waitress
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DAILY HOLY SMOKE
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Salted banana chips DAILY PLATANOS FRITOS
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Thermos bottle for DAILY CAFÉ CUBANO
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Roasted peanuts DAILY MANÍ
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Small plastic cup DAILY EMPTINESS
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Fading fame.
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Freshly squeezed orange juice DAILY JUGO DE NARANJA
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Café billiards.
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Bag for DAILY AIMLESSNESS strolling
Angela WAITdress
WAIT-DRESS
The waitress of the DAILY CUBAN DELI was furnished with her own corporate fashion, the so-called WAIT-DRESS selling branded drinks, snacks and cigars from her “Belly Tray”.
“There was a lot of
waiting in Cuba.
Waiting in a queue,
waiting for a bus,
waiting for change,
waiting for better life, waiting for the right husband ...”
DAILY Game
DAILY GAME features daily fights against Americans: in this game of backgammon are playing Cuban Revolutionaries against Hollywood Movie Stars of the Fifties, bottle caps made of metal against screw tops made of plastic.
“In this DAILY GAME are playing Cuban Revolutionaries against Hollywood Movie Stars of the Fifties.”
MEMORY Design
MEMORY DESIGN
This propagated collective memory is the central theme of this memory game made up of Cuban revolutionaries. In this card game, all the men stand on an equal footing, none is more important than another. Fidel Castro, his brother Raúl and Che Guevara all queue up in the anonymity of the masses.
Cigar box with 82 pairs of playing cards.
“Life in Cuba is memory”
