The power of a blank slate and a minimal setup

Where are we now

– I am writing this back from one of our walking meetings. Those are always just as productive as they are effortless. We head out of home, on foot – sometimes out of grandma’s home, where we had lunch – and take the stairs to the beach. It’s a ten minutes walk. Once you are there, cars are not anymore in sight, and the sound of the waves helps putting your thoughts in order. Pumping blood from the feet up makes you more creative. No distractions – no devices, no furniture, not even coffee needed.
Best time of the day.

We come from…

Three years ago, Andrea would commute every morning to the office, a forty minutes trip on a very efficient transportation service in Finland. You could track the whole commute with an app: hop on, hop off, always on time. No way you could do this in Sicily, where we live right now. You would soon be seriously lost. But we decided to live this way, at least for now, and we have our good reasons. We sold our apartment in Helsinki with all the things in it – we spent the last night happily sleeping on the floor – and came back here, to get the freedom to try new things, the freedom to fail too – the freedom to create something just as we wanted!

More room for inspiration

The power of a blank slate is something that our generation can perhaps experience more than our parents’. We have been often displaced for work, and in a sense, the world is our home. Yet sometimes we are never really home: it was around that consideration that we slowed down, and started to live with less. As a synth lover, Andrea used to own a lot of gear. He still does, just he reduced the family to the synths which really respond to his own process. He realized he loves those he can play outdoors, for instance. Creating the Cremacaffè stands was part of this process of building the ideal, mobile workstation. The stand itself is a very simple object, stripped down to the essential structure of what is needed for maximum enjoyment.

Simple solutions

Sometimes solutions are simple, and you just need to really take the time to think about it. In order to make time, you will inevitably focus your energy on fewer, more essential aspects. A little bit like the careful balancing, followed by an effortless jump, of a cat.
Our goal is to make more time for music and for designing. Those are the happiness-releasing acts in our lives. Consequently, we decided to reduce time spent in taking care of stuff we don’t use, which automatically makes room for fewer, more loved objects, the inspirational tools for reaching our creative goals.

Happy side effects

Since we started Cremacaffè, and once overcome a slow start, happy side effects have been cascading. Never underestimate the power of a thoughtfully designed object to call out for the great people from all over the world. This kind of purchases is the opposite of “consuming” – it is a continuation of a design process on one end, and the beginning of a happier music-making process on the other end. In some cases, it is also the beginning of a collaboration – this is how we started our Artist Portraits on Cremacaffè Blog. We are also actively working on turning these collaborations into live events and site-specific projects: our latest Dream is to build a great place where you can come visit us, in Sicily. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, having walking meetings by the beach and taking music to beautiful, unsung places?

Just Friday

As you have probably guessed, there will be no Black Friday for us. It will be Just Friday. As usual, we will be happy to give a discount to our Clients asking to pay less on the purchase of two or more stands, and we will make sure to slip in that extra miniature keychain, a sample pack and some fresh-off-the-press postcard. Our products will be smelling of wood when you take them out the handmade softbag. It will take up to two weeks for delivery in Europe, and from two to three weeks in the US and everywhere else outside EU, so please take that into account for your Christmas basket. In the meantime, we keep improving our products based on the feedback you give us, and dreaming big. Hopefully you can come visit us very soon.

Keep in touch!
Elisa & Andrea