Founded by DJ, graphic designer and muralist Gabriela Posada and marketing director Ana Corredor, SuperSonic Kiupai is a café in Bogota that combines the café format with a listening bar experience. Its branding focuses on the colours blue and white and features a sweet, baby-faced logo, which appears across its coffee cups.

“It first emerged as a café-drawing idea, but the music aspect seemed very important to us,” the founders of SuperSonic tell Creative Review. “We were inspired by the listening bars that started in the 1950s in Japan and became stronger in the 1970s, but with a more contemporary aesthetic.”

The main logo of the café is a baby with a pair of headphones on. “The inspiration comes from the Kewpie dolls created by American cartoonist Rose O’Nielle,” SuperSonic explains. “Although they were originally created in the USA, their production moved to Japan, and they’re very well-known there. They’re a great graphic reference and a symbol of the country we wanted to draw inspiration from, so it was a good match for what we wanted to show.”

As for the specific colour palette, Posada elaborates: “Royal blue has always been one of my favourite colours, and the reference colour of one of my favourite brands – adidas. I find it striking. It is a complementary colour, so within the chromatic circle it combines with several colours. It produces calm in me and at the same time it is neutral, so it helps people not want to leave.”

Colombia is a great exporter of both coffee and music. Aside from the café and listening bar concept, SuperSonic has launched merch, its own line of coffee and ceramic dolls – all complete with their Kewpie-inspired logo.

“We decided that it should be a set of things that we liked and were in line with our passions, hobbies and profession. We wanted to unify all our things in a place that had to be a café,” Posada says, “because cafés are places that invite you to enter, to share, to communicate and it is very linked to Colombia.”

As for what’s next? The pair are building upon their multidisciplinary format with a collaboration – a new merch collection with the Colombian brand Don’t Care, which leans into subculture-inspired apparel, is in the works.

@supersonic_kiupai