Blue hour is a photographer's term. It is the stretch just after sunset and just before sunrise when the sun sits below the horizon and everything goes soft, even and blue. Photographers plan whole days around it.
So when a coffee shop names itself after a lighting condition, and then asks for a photo booth, the brief mostly writes itself. We had the pleasure of working with Blue Hour Coffee through our venue placement program.
The shop
Blue Hour Coffee opened on Milwaukee's East Side in May, at 2410 North Murray Avenue. It was started by the Milwaukee streetwear label Unfinished Legacy, and it has been written about locally as a new home for the city's artists.
You can see that in our photos. Gallery white walls, polished concrete, exposed ductwork left honest, a framed print on one wall and a large painting still leaning against another waiting to be hung. It is a room built to put work in.
What we built
Everything on this booth is the shop's name.
The marquee is bright blue, backlit, with PHOTOBOOTH in white, and it runs across two faces so it reads from either direction as you come into the room. The curtain is deep navy velvet on brass rings. The floor plate is blue with a fine white grid and MAJESTIC set into it. Blue, navy, blue.
The frame and panels stay brushed silver and pale grey, which keeps the whole thing cool rather than warm. Our booth at Cherrybomb coffee in Louisiana is red velvet and warm mustard because it sits beside a diner counter. This room is the opposite temperature, so the booth is too.
Underneath it is our Classic booth, on brass leveling feet, with the print slot set into the lower panel.
{{button}}
The mirrors
The part we like most is the side panels, because they are mirrors rather than printed graphics.
Two reasons. The practical one is that everybody checks themselves before they get into a photo booth, and most people do it with a phone camera in the queue. Putting the mirror on the machine means they do it here instead, which sounds trivial and at the same time genuinely lifts how happy people are with the strip that comes out.
The second reason is the room. Mirrors make a compact space read larger and they throw the shop's own light back into it, which matters in a white room with big windows. In the photos you can see the window, the framed print and the counter reflected in the panels. The booth is showing you the cafe.
The vinyl on the mirror is the shop's own words, not ours: Blue Hour Coffee, and running vertically beside it, in the quiet turning of light.
We did not write that line and we would not have improved on it. It describes blue hour, and it also describes what happens behind the curtain when the flash goes.
Where this sits
Blue Hour is our first booth in Wisconsin, and it belongs to a run of daytime installs alongside Cherrybomb and LOQUI in a Playa Vista food hall. Coffee shops give a booth an unusual rhythm: no peak, a long tail, people who came in to sit for an hour anyway.
Want one in your room?
We design and build custom photo booths, specified to the room they are going into, and install them permanently through our venue placement program with maintenance handled by us. We also do brand activations if you want to elevate your events to bring unforgettable moments.
Tell us about your space and what you want people leaving with.
{{button}}
.webp)
.webp)