The year was 2010. Starbucks was scaling globally at a breathtaking pace, but Howard Schultz made clear it wasn’t just about size—it was about responsibility. Every store was mandated to achieve LEED Platinum certification by 2016. With nearly 25,000 stores projected by then, the challenge was monumental.
Starbucks also held to its founding philosophy of creating a “third place”: not home, not work, but a vital community hub. This vision meant each café needed to reflect both Starbucks’ global brand ethos and the local environments they served. To succeed, they had to weave sustainability, locality, and cultural sensitivity into every corner of their design.
Starbucks needed partners who could match their sustainability goals without compromising design quality. In Southeast Asia, the mandate for local sourcing and eco-conscious practices intersected with a brand expectation for craft, quality, and consistency.
Indoteak Design, a boutique materials company in Indonesia, had the right DNA:
The greenest luxury flooring on the planet—non-leaching, VOC-free glues, European oil finishes.
A mission rooted in reclaiming precious old-growth teak from slated demolition sites.
A design ethos blending sustainability with luxury craftsmanship.
The problem? Starbucks didn’t yet see Indoteak as capable of scaling to support their global rollout. Prophetic was engaged to bridge that gap with a story—and an experience—that would make the partnership undeniable.
Prophetic began with an Envisioning session with Indoteak. Together, we asked:
“How do we tell the Indoteak story in a way that complements Starbucks’ global goals?”
“How do we demonstrate scale, not just craft?”
The answers became a plan to show—not just tell—the story. We built a pitch presentation that embodied the philosophy of both brands. Out-of-the-box creativity anchored in deep alignment:
Product Expansion: Prophetic designed collections of teak furniture—chairs, shelving, bar tops, cabinetry, wood tile—extending Indoteak’s materials into a Starbucks café setting.
Tactile Storytelling: A catalog and miniature samples showcased possibilities at scale. A full-size chair prototype demonstrated quality beyond question.
Experiential Packaging: Everything was housed in a giant wooden shipping crate, rugged on the outside like a 19th-century expedition chest, but refined and organized within. It was both artifact and metaphor: local material, global imagination.
This wasn’t just a pitch. It was a prophecy of what partnership could look like.
The crate was shipped directly to Elizabeth Gailey, Starbucks’ global head of design. Within ten minutes of delivery, Indoteak received a call: “Come to Seattle. We want to collaborate.”
That first meeting set off a chain of collaborations:
A 16,000-store rollout across Southeast Asia.
A flagship build in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, designed to announce Starbucks’ entry into the market with cultural credibility.
Ongoing Envisionings with Starbucks Global Design teams in Hong Kong and beyond, deepening trust and expanding Indoteak’s market footprint into luxury residential and hospitality sectors.
Starbucks achieved its LEED Platinum goals, becoming the greenest company in its sector worldwide. Indoteak Design transformed from a niche boutique into a global luxury materials player.
Richard Tan, Director of Global Design at Starbucks, summarized it best:
“The new surfaces and furniture you have designed for us have given us much more than what we asked for. Your materials have enabled conversations we never had before. This is the best session we’ve ever had cross-functionally. We already had years of win-win relationship with you, and this is next-level.”
Prophetic helped author a story where sustainability and design excellence weren’t opposites but allies.
Starbucks’ global promise found local expression. Indoteak found global stage.
Together, they authored a future neither could have realized alone.
We don’t look at just one aspect of a brand. We consider the whole experience. How a brand looks, speaks, behaves, feels, and dreams.