Tadaima Cafe Window Illustrations

Highlight

Tadaima (唯今) is a Hong Kong cafe with a double identity: coffee by day, sake by night. When my friend, who loves Japanese sake, opened the shop, he asked me to design window stickers that could represent both sides of the space.

"Tadaima" (ただいま) means "I am home" in Japanese, so I designed around that feeling: a place that welcomes you in no matter what time you walk through the door.

The Idea

I split the illustrations across the shop's windows to reflect how the space is used.

The main window features a cat mid-stretch, inspired by the stray cats often spotted around Japan and the laid-back feeling we wanted for the shop. A fun little detail: the cat is actually modelled after my own.

On one side window, coffee cups, toast, baguettes, and a fried egg represent the daytime menu. On the other, a sake bottle and cups represent the evening drinks, tying back to my friend's love for sake.

It was a fun, low-pressure project that let me translate a friend's vision for his shop into something visual, warm, and a little playful.