Drink Coffee. Do Art. Project Analysis

Creative Strategy, Marketing, Project Management + more

The Drink Coffee. Do Art. Exhibition is an initiative I pitched to a new local coffee shop, Land of a Thousand Hills Deep Ellum (LTH), to raise awareness of the business and integrate them into the local arts scene.

The shop opened in December 2021. We launched the art gallery curation efforts in January 2022 with the exhibition ending in April 2022.

Want a glance at my process and how this all came to life? Check out this vlog!

About

LTH’s store manager expressed wanting to make the atmosphere more lively by bringing art and social activities to the space in 2022. I pitched the idea to curate an art gallery with local DFW artists. LTH loved the idea and it was quickly approved for me to lead this effort. We co-created the exhibition name Drink Coffee. Do Art. as a play on the company’s slogan Drink Coffee. Do Good.

Tasks

I planned and led all elements of the exhibition including but not limited to the following:

Acted as the main point of contact for the exhibition.
Published an open call listing all the details and expectations (Exhibit A).
Determined best dates for the exhibition and events (Exhibit B).
Garnered over 20 applications within two weeks for the open call using organic social media strategies (Exhibit C).
Curated the space - measured the walls to determine the best dimensions of artwork, determined the gallery layout, and designed the shopping experience for guests to buy the art.
Copywrote and designed all promotional graphics for social media (Instagram).
Utilized photos + videos to raise awareness of the art gallery and coffee shop. (Example)
Managed the artists by using a scheduling tool for them to hang their work, guiding artwork placement on shop walls, and overall communications throughout the exhibition.
Planned and hosted the opening and closing events:
- Opening event (Exhibit D) - booked pop-up vendor, Vegan Vibrationz, to sell food during the event resulting in over 100 visitors.
- Closing event (Exhibit E) - booked five of the gallery artists to sell merchandise and pop-up vendor, Mahal Eating to sell food during the event resulting in over 50 visitors. Note: Mahal Eating sold out.
Secured press for both events via the Dallas Observer and D Magazine (Exhibit F) using my local media relationships.

Sales Analysis

December to January*: 26% increase

January to February: 16% sales increase

February to March: 5% sales increase

March to April: no increase/decrease

Opening Event: Sales on February 10th were 5% higher than the average of the two previous weeks and 8% higher between the hours of the exhibition.

Closing Event: Sales on April 30th were 5% higher than the average of the two previous weekends.

*LTH opened in December. The project was announced in early January.

Social Media Analysis

Instagram

400+ post shares
Earned over 1,500 likes on all posts related to the gallery*
LTH Instagram following increased by 50% during the gallery dates (February 10 - April 30)

*10 posts created

Artist Stats

11 artists were selected for the art gallery with majority being BIPOC.

7 out of the 11 artists had never displayed their work in an exhibition prior.

9 out of the 11 artists secured new gallery opportunities within the exhibition dates.

Conclusion

Overall, this period was a great kickstart for the business using the power of organic social media marketing. This was a passion project that I have been wanting to execute for a few years. I used a variety of my skills to make this successful, bring the community together, and create opportunities for local up-and-coming artists and vendors.