SOURCE ARTICLE: https://www.rddmag.com
Restaurant Development + Design Magazine Interviews Callin Fortis of Bigtime Design Studios
In a recent interview featured in Restaurant Development + Design Magazine, Callin Fortis of Bigtime Design Studios shares his insights on the latest trends and challenges in restaurant design. As a leading figure in the industry, Fortis discusses the importance of experiential design, the role of AI in the creative process, and the growing trend towards custom product sourcing. The full article, titled “Designers Dish 2024,” includes perspectives from other top designers like Jessica Haley of RODE Architecture, Mike Mora of Heliotrope Architects, and Lori Mukoyama of Gensler. Below, we’ve highlighted the questions and answers featuring Callin Fortis. For the full discussion with all the designers, you can read the complete article here.
Designers Dish 2024
August 29, 2024 | by
What’s in? What’s out? What’s promising to shape or reshape how designers think about restaurant projects in an environment in which providing good value and great experiences are mission critical for restaurant brands? For insights on trends and strategies, we turned to four veteran designers and architects leading studios large and small, from the Pacific Northwest to the Southeast, Midwest, and Northeast. Each is well-versed in the art and science of transforming empty spaces and nascent concepts into alluring and vibrant restaurants.
What big trends are influencing your restaurant work right now?
Fortis: On a macro level, it’s the need for experiential design, which is tightly connected to social media. Restaurants have to check more boxes today than great food, service, and atmosphere. I call it the two-minute moment, and we have to design for it. We get about 120 seconds for a guest to walk in, check out a space, and have that sort of wow moment. And then it has to last for 90 to 120 minutes, which involves front-to-backdoor experiential design—façade, uniforms, plating, service, restrooms, decor, lighting, acoustics, all the details. Even chefs and menu developers now carefully consider the colors of the food, the colors and styles of the plates, etc., in terms of how they’ll photograph. When people take pictures of their food to share on social media, those images need to reflect the right je ne sais quoi of the restaurant.
Are there restaurant design elements you feel are overdone today?
Fortis: Cliche culture. If I see one more pink neon sign with a cute saying or angel wings without a head on the wall as a backdrop for selfies, I’ll scream. Those sorts of pop, throwaway moments have been done to death, but we still have clients who just want to know where that Instagram moment is. It makes it challenging, and even more important for designers to get clients to understand the importance of brand mission, which connects to brand and design narrative. The tighter that is, the easier and more authentic the so-called Instagram moments can and should be.
What role, if any, does AI play in your design process?
Fortis: Initially, a lot of creative people, me included, were scared of it. But we’re using it and learning to see it as another tool, and one that’s very cool. On a recent project, we used AI to help us create a muse on which the whole brand and design narrative are based. We plugged in every detail we could about this person we dreamed up, along with a very tight brand strategic framework, and the character that the system generated was spot on. It was better and faster than what we’d been able to come up with on our own, and the buy-in we got on it helped drive every decision. But there’s also a lot it can’t do, like specify and create construction documents, at least not yet.
In what ways have your priorities around and approach to sourcing materials evolved?
Fortis: We’re seeing huge growth in our ability to source custom products, often from outside the U.S., that are equal to or better than what we could traditionally specify. It has become a complete industry in and of itself and the impact on what we can design is huge. We used to be limited to some degree by our database of resources; you couldn’t go to them for just one of anything. Now, you can do almost a whole restaurant custom. And it’s affordable and deliverable.
Complete this thought: “Clients could save themselves money and headaches on projects if they would…”
Fortis: Invest time in development. Everyone’s in a big rush to get to construction documents. They’re paying rent and want to get open, but when they rush into construction they inevitably start asking for changes, and that’s expensive and a headache. A saying I like to use is, ‘If you had the money to do it twice, you had the money to do it right the first time.’
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