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Coffee & More: A Celebration of togetherness
Margot Barolo
A celebration of togetherness
When Swedish design brand Sagaform introduced Coffee & More in 2018, their aim was not simply to launch a tableware collection but to inspire those who use it to think about what it means to spend time together. The collection quickly became a favourite, not only for its playful design language but for the way it invites people to gather, share, and celebrate life’s everyday moments.
It is somewhat ironic that Barolo herself doesn’t drink coffee, but it is just this detail that highlights the essence of the collection. Coffee is never only about the drink itself. Across cultures, offering a cup of coffee is a small but meaningful gesture, a way of saying you are welcome here.
“In every culture, it is an invitation to conversation and friendship,” Barolo explains. With Coffee & More, she wanted to capture that spirit and turn everyday rituals into something both beautiful and memorable.
Craft, clay and storytelling
Barolo’s deep understanding of ceramics runs through every piece she creates. “Since I have studied sculpture and worked extensively with clay and ceramics in various techniques, I know the material well, its possibilities as well as its limitations,” she says. “It’s a fascinating material you have to work with, not against. It comes from the soil and tells a story through its very composition: the geography, the colour, the minerals.”
That intimate connection to clay shapes her approach to design. When creating Coffee & More, Barolo imagined a fictional family who surrounded themselves with colour and embraced a playful attitude toward design and the home. “I wanted the mugs to be randomly mixed in colours, patterns, and shapes, whether stacked in the cabinets or set out for a party,” she explains. “The mix itself would create a decorative element, serving as a celebration of imperfection.”
Playful design with a timeless feel
A graduate of Beckmans College of Design with a master’s degree in ceramics from Konstfack, Barolo’s design language is both confident and approachable, rooted in craftsmanship yet open and playful. Inspired by the bold colours and functional lines of the 1970s, Coffee & More combines glossy glazes, tactile relief patterns, and robust forms.
“I love the robustness and, at the same time, the unexpected combinations of colours,” she says of her 1970s inspiration. “That playfulness has been a strong influence, especially since I experienced an era of the opposite from the 1990s onward. I believe beauty must allow for flaws.”
The tableware’s stackable shapes encourage personal creativity through a mix of colours and textures, allowing each user to arrange the pieces in ways that reflect their own home and personality. It is a collection that celebrates both order and chaos, equally suited to a meticulously laid dinner table or a lively weekend breakfast.
A new shade, a new chapter
This season, Coffee & More welcomes a new member to the family: a soft, warm beige. Finding the right tone wasn’t easy. Barolo and the Sagaform team tested countless samples to strike the perfect balance between lightness and depth. The result is a shade that feels contemporary yet timeless.
“I’ve long wanted to create a light but warm tone that brings out the deeper colours in the collection,” Barolo explains. “Beige also offers a contrast to the harsh white that has dominated the design world for so long.”
With its calming presence, the new beige adds versatility to the collection. It blends seamlessly with natural materials like wood and linen while enhancing bolder shades such as green and red. It is a colour designed not to dominate but to highlight the beauty of everything around it.
Balancing trends and timelessness
In a fast-changing design world, Barolo reflects thoughtfully on what it means to create something lasting.
“I believe timelessness lies in something other than a common formal language,” she says. “It often emerges from objects that represent a time or decade, linked to innovations of that era in technique, materials, or ideas. Design, art, and architecture all reflect the spirit of their time, often as a reaction to what came before.”
She acknowledges that no designer can exist entirely outside trends. “We are all influenced by the world around us, by films, books, and shared ideas. I try to balance this by going deeper into my own interests within all those influences: zooming out to understand the world and its complexity, then narrowing it down and analysing how I can translate it into something as small as an object.”
Setting the stage for togetherness
For Barolo, Coffee & More has always been about more than objects. It is about the moments they help create. She encourages mixing pieces playfully, skipping the tablecloth and embracing the texture of the table beneath, and letting colours and textures speak for themselves. Greenery, candleholders, and different heights of stacked tableware add vibrancy and warmth to any table setting.
The buffet table remains her favourite scene. Quick to assemble yet full of life, it allows people to gather, share, and enjoy without fuss. “I want the table to feel inviting, beautiful and practical,” she says.
At its heart, Coffee & More is not just a design collection but an invitation to gather, to share, and to create moments that linger long after the last cup is finished. With each new colour and each shared meal, it continues to remind us that the true beauty of the table lies in the people around it.
Photos: Sagaform
