Recently, a Starbucks partner in California e-mailed me and said that she’d been reading the blog, and she wanted to show off her store’s fabulous art. I totally enjoy featuring the creativity and the art that appears on Starbucks chalkboards everywhere. I saw these chalkboards and thought they were great! I especially love the one featuring Ethos water! It is just so unique.
If you want to look at more great chalk art, click through the articles in this category here: Partner Chalk Art and Creativity.
I owe a huge thank you to the partner who sent me these great pieces of art! I always love getting those kinds of emails. I hope you enjoy these too. Happy Fourth of July to all my U.S. readers! Don’t forget, if you’re in the United States, you can stop into any participating Starbucks on July 4th, and get a free tall brewed coffee. The free coffee is part of Starbucks’ Indivisible campaign.
This is an open thread. Talk about anything Starbucks-related.
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NICE!
Happy 4th to everyone!
These are really nice pieces of art work Melody! Thanx for another share.
I was in our store early this morn. and almost took a pic of the “Happy 4th…..free tall coffee” etc for today. It was pretty cool.
I do, however, think they might have put up something to the effect a bit sooner…like yesterday!
In any case, they had plenty of partners on today and lots of red, white and blue. was nice. (I was disappointed to see they were using their 3-region as a BOLD, when personally, I never thought it was and secondly, they don’t even classify it as a DARK on the shelves..it gets the “medium”…which it is.) Didn’t affect me personally because I already had REAL BOLD at home earlier (I had to be able to get out the door:)
Love love love the chalkboard art! I wish our store would use it more especially since there is a partner willing and talented to do it. Got the free tall coffee as well but did not see any signs for people to know about it. Happy 4th to all as well.
Happy Independence Day GaStarbucksGirl, Purple1 and Denise! I thoroughly love seeing hand drawn signs at Starbucks. 🙂
Love the chalk art. Used to be every Starbucks in our town had at least 1, and often 2 or 3, artists. Now they are all gone except 1. There is a link between artistic talent and espresso talent.
I too wish everyone a merry, safe, and sane 4th of July. When I was in high school our marching band did at least 2 parades and a concert in the park. While I enjoyed it at the time, it was not until later in life that I understood why there was a tear in the eye of many of the Veterans.
@Melody, I do notice that you have changed the way comments post and how new posts and replies are sent out. Put in a new WordPad Plugin. BTW the titled link ( ) in the new post emails presents a 404 page, but the shortened link/url ( http://wp.me/p2j9eQ-3MU ) works. There is also a WordPad plugin that allows people to register and log on to a site, you might want to look at it.
I love chalk art! Even when the baristas can’t draw all that well, I feel like the art makes the store feel like less of a “corporate drone drink our cawfee plz” hive and more of the cool, coffee-shop vibe that Starbucks used to aspire too. Unfortunately, almost every store here locally just sticks up the pre-printed signs that come in with the new marketing and call it a day. Surely they could get a customer or two to draw something? Thanks for the art Melody!
I love chalk art. My daughter is gifted when it comes to art and I always wished she worked at Starbucks just to get her hand on some of that chalk and a board. Of course being a great barista would also help. Dragons with all the details are her specialty. I would love to have seen her do some chalk art for Komodo Dragon. Today at the Streets of Woodfield, the chalk art consisted of all the Reserves listed with “OUT OF!” next to them. They were out of almost every Reserve.
I hope everybody has a happy and safe 4th of July. Hopefully some of you aren’t sweltering in the heat like we are in Chicago. I never cared for Iced Coffee, but today I learned to appreciate it for the first time.
ps: @Denise – Were you aware that Streets is now a Starbucks Evenings location?
Got my free cup of coffee today! Happy, safe yet festive Fourth to all!
It’s funny you posted this Melody. I was in a Starbucks the other day and noticed some chalk art that I almost took a picture of to send to you. It was promoting the “Frappuchino” and it reminded me of how many times I see incorrect spelling in chalk art. One of my favorites is “carmel.”
Happy 4th everyone!
I really do enjoy seeing the chalk art as well. I like the pink & purple flames on the French Roast sign!
I just made a snazzy Italian Roast sign for a “sign off” we did in my store for the three whole bean coffees on sale. I love the Ethos water sign!
@chgo: yes, I was aware of Streets change (or, addition). Haven’t been there yet tho. Maybe after it’s not hotter than hell……. ??? someday?
That’s cool that your daughter is talented like that. I have often wished I could draw ..anything…on our chalkboard….especially when they are using those cardboard stick-ons. I used to be fairly ‘artsy’ and drew alot of things (signs, etc) when I was younger. Anyway, hope your 4th was good and that we catch a break with this weather SOON!
Heat intense here. It is such a shame that my local store does not do chalkboard art or make it inviting with signs. Looking around I certainly would not be curious about buying anything. Also, when we went back to the store in the afternoon I looked again and did not see one sign for the free tall coffee promotion on July 4th. If it was there, it sure was in small print!
We were instructed not to change the sign reflecting the July 4th offer as the board just changed. Also will change on Monday night/Tuesday morning.
Diele I am not totally clear on your sign change comment. Is your store still offering the July 4th promotion if the sign is still up?
There should have never been a sign up about it. We had clear direction to not change the sign to reflect the offer. The daily offerings board should talk about the featured frappuccinos.
@Diele: as I said, we did have some chalk-art re the free tall coffee yesterday but the sign was being drawn while quite a morning rush was already occurring. We have no farppuccino offering going on here…unless you count the choc chip cookie crumb thing which already has a big stand up sign nr the front door..and seems like very old news actually. I can’t imagine NOT wanting to alert customers to the free coffee offering. seems a bit underhanded to me….. I told several people that I know when they came in..one guy in particular generally gets a grande. (there was no sign yet) He was thankful for the info and got the tall coffee, which is what I would do as opposed to a grande if it happened to be free. Plus he always stays in store. Just think it was bit weird, so little to-do about it……
or, FRappuccino;)
Denise I totally agree do not understand why they would not promote in store the free tall coffee promotion when they sent out an email to let people know about it. Maybe they were hoping there would not be a big response to this promotion? I am hoping that all partners were made aware to give free tall coffee to customers.
We were told the Mocha Cookie Crumble offering board was to remain since we are featuring frappuccinos as our promo item. They sent an email to registered card members and ALL stores posted the letter from Howard on the community boards which stated the free tall hot brewed coffee offer. I am just relaying what we were communicated through the store portal.
Melody how interesting your comments re social
Media and the free coffee promo and love to see the number of retweets you got. Let’s start a campaign to bring back chalkboard art to the stores instead of stencils and signs. Makes such a big difference for sure.
@Purple1 – If I could do anything to bring back chalk art, I would. It does give a store a lot of personality. And every single time I write about barista-created art, lots of people say they love, and those articles get a lot of views too. But whatever I’m writing here, I guess it’s not reaching the right partners at the SSC. I think that Starbucks should do their own contest like the one I did here:
http://www.starbucksmelody.com/2012/04/01/the-2012-chalkboard-art-contest-entries-and-winners/
Starbucks could do something to encourage more chalk art though I don’t really know what! But they could do something.
Melody I am still at my local SB and the partner that would do chalkboard art in a second is here and I showed her these pics and she said it just seems there is no interest in doing it again and she also told me at another store they were told not to do it anymore.
I love a good chalkboard sign, but in terms of how much time it takes to get a really nice sign done vs. the payoff I see from that nice signs, i believe my partners” time can be better spent. Also, I have seen soooo many really lackluster signs that make me very glad for the cardboard cutouts. Also, the amount of times the chalkboard changes makes me hesitant to have a partner spend so much time on the original one.
We have had one of my talented artist draw beautiful chalkboard signs on black Bristol board, which we use for the rotating coffee baskets. Then we get the beautiful art and can change it up too 🙂
As usual, all I can say is wow when I look at some of the chalk art. I particularly like the ethos one. Too bad there’s not more of it around.
The chalkboard art truly thwarts the “commoditization of the experience.” Not everything has to be about money. Starbucks should encourage this kind of stuff! It is one of the only things that gives a store a lot of character. On a bigger picture, I’m not of the thinking that every single store has to be the same as the next. There is intense pressure to make each store TOTALLY uniform from coast to coast, but that just is boring. I like that some stores sell t-shirts and some don’t. I think a little variety in food is okay. It brings excitement to the experience. I like that a few stores have manual machines. This is something that it seems like Starbucks does NOT get – it is okay not to every store be the exact same as the next. And the chalkboards definitely bring surprise and excitement to the stores.
Last night we decided to go to another SB store instead of our local one and it was very different in design and character. It is funny because we had mixed feelings about it and we were not sure if it is because we are so familiar with our local store or that we really did not like it. BTW SB stores sell tee shirts? Never have seen any around here sell shirts! I like the fact that the store designs are different and that food choices could be varied. I too share the hope that SB stores do not become the same everywhere.
Yay! More artwork! 😀
I always found that drawing with chalk was a particularly tricky one. So hard to do and so easy to mess up!
Barb – The “French Roast” chalkboard is shown here especially for you. 🙂
These are great signs, I wish we saw more of these in stores. Drawing with chalk requires a degree of talent, I would love to see these signed by the artist.
Today I received a bunch of coupons for the refreshers drinks and the Via but can only be used at starbucks in Target stores. This is the first time I have gotten these specific coupons. I have gone a few times to the local Target where there is a SB store so curious if they are taking the names from there. Anyone else get these?