Moleskine Cafe, Beijing

Iconic notebook company Moleskine has expanded its new Café series with an outing in Sanlitun, Beijing. A reinterpretation of the ‘café littéraire’ approach, it combines café, gallery and retail store elements for creative, inspiring results.

Clean, timeless and contemporary, the space both celebrates and expresses the Moleskine brand ethos. Crisp white walls and blonde timber recall the pages of a Moleskine notebook, while an all-black café area references the brand’s instantly recognisable leather covers.

In this interactive, creative space, Moleskine delivers a hospitality-driven physical incarnation of its iconic notebooks.

A mix of individual and community tables gives customers opportunities to interact, while a large area of the space is given over to showcasing the work of both established and aspiring creatives. These journal-inspired displays evoke the feeling of thumbing through the pages of a notebook.

A calendar of events featuring workshops and talks highlights local and international makers and innovators. These are focused around the brand’s core values: culture, creativity, travel and personal expression. Customers can also participate in coffee workshops and purchase coffee in custom Moleskine sachets. Meanwhile a retail wall area displays Moleskine’s notebooks, journals and writing instruments.

The café approach is part of Moleskine’s efforts to use hospitality to engage creative professionals. Its distinctly analogue setting extends the Moleskine experience beyond its trademark notebooks via culture and community, providing a distinct contrast to the trend towards AR and high-tech coffee hotspots.