Blue Octopus Absinthe Tavern & Sci-Fi Bookstore - Steampunk-Inspired Retail

Gaslight Interiors originally designed the Blue Octopus, a steampunk-style sci-fi book shop, cafe, and pub, for a space in Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood. Inspired by "Octopus Diner," a gorgeous fantasy-like image of a bar under the sea by Canadian digital artist Stéphan Brisson, we immediately thought of science fiction writer Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. We wanted to evoke the edgy, “retro-futuristic” steampunk subculture based on 19th-century steam-powered England, set in an alternative universe where steam replaces electricity. Our goal was to create a decor combining elegance and machinery, industrial and gothic, a place where customers dress up in proper Victorian finery, such as corsets, bustles, vests, and top hats. Gaslight Interiors envisioned an environment where Verne’s underwater world meets Sherlock Holmes’ Victorian London and created the aesthetic of an underwater zeppelin as the space's focal point. Welcome to the future that never happened.

Our client wanted to present an atmosphere of excitement and adventure from the moment customers stepped foot into the space, a world powered by steam and gears. Envisioning a gothic aesthetic but instead of silver, the Blue Octopus will feature a plethora of aged copper, bronze, and black wrought iron. Decorations and gadgets such as goggles, airships (zeppelins), stopwatches, old maps, and stylized gears will surround customers on the walls and counters. Victorian and industrial-style furniture and woodwork will grace the space in dark woods such as walnut and mahogany. Bookcases and cabinets will be clad in metal with rivets and embossed steampunk imagery, and the crowning touch will be an embossed tin ceiling painted in copper. An option, not pictured, would be a colorful ”flying” airship, suspended from the embossed tin ceiling, concealing the overhead electrical wiring,

Color Concept:

Working with gouaches, Gaslight Interiors came up with a complementary color palette of blue-green and red-orange. The blue-green shade of the walls in a dark value will give customers the feeling of being under the murky ocean water, perhaps travelling in a submarine or bathysphere. We mixed a light tint for the blue octopus himself, repeated a darker value of this hue on the frieze at the top of the walls, and used a red-orange tint with a high chroma on the concrete floor. We created several custom copper colors for the trim and accents by mixing red, orange, metallic gold, burnt sienna, and gold ochre. Although brighter than the traditional steampunk sepia-toned color aesthetic, the light floor opens up the space and contrasts nicely with the dark value of the walls. It seems to glow as if there were buried treasure on the ocean floor. The red-orange works well as the floor color, allowing us to create the typical steampunk color palette of brown, red, copper, bronze, and black.

 As far as furniture color and design, our client was emphatic from the beginning that the furniture be decorative, but at the same time functional and, most importantly, comfortable for customers. We chose dark-colored woods such as walnut for the tables and chairs and distressed mahogany for the bar to be true to the steampunk aesthetic.