The noise problem in our café had two sides to it, and for a long time we were only solving one of them.
We opened in Al Quoz eighteen months ago — a specialty coffee concept with an interior we had spent a long time getting right. Exposed concrete, warm timber shelving, a back wall we always intended to be a visual anchor for the space. What we did not anticipate was that the same hard surfaces that gave the café its look would make it genuinely unpleasant to sit in once it was full. Conversations at the counter bled into every corner. The espresso machine, the grinder, ambient music — it all merged into a wall of noise that customers started commenting on within the first few weeks.
We looked at the standard fixes. Soft furnishings, more rugs, a suspended ceiling treatment above the seating area. All of them either compromised the aesthetic we had worked to build or did not make a meaningful difference to the sound. What we actually needed was something that treated the acoustic problem and worked as part of the interior — not in spite of it.
A friend who runs a co-working space in JLT had used desound for a large-format printed panel installation in his reception area and suggested we speak to them. The idea that an acoustic panel could also carry a printed graphic — our brand artwork, our own visual identity — was not something we had considered seriously until that conversation.
What we were actually trying to solve
The back wall of our café is approximately eight metres wide and three metres high. It faces the main seating area and is the first thing customers see when they walk in. We had always planned for it to hold something visually significant — we just had not landed on what.
At the same time, that wall was a large flat hard surface contributing directly to the reverberation problem. Treating it acoustically without covering it in something that looked like a corporate office fix was the design challenge we could not resolve on our own.
What we needed in one solution:
• Meaningful sound absorption across a large surface area — not decorative softening, actual acoustic performance.
• A visual result that felt intentional and brand-consistent, not generic.
• Installation that worked within our existing interior without requiring structural changes.
The design process
The initial conversation with Desound was less about acoustic specifications and more about how we used the space and what we wanted customers to feel when they looked at the wall. That framing helped.
We worked with our own graphic designer to develop the artwork — a large-format illustration rooted in our brand identity, with the tonal range and detail density that works at scale on fabric. Desound advised on resolution requirements, panel layout and seaming, and how to handle the join lines so they read as part of the composition rather than a technical constraint.
A few decisions that shaped the final outcome:
• Panel sizing was set to minimize visible seams while still allowing the installation to come in through our service entrance. Getting that balance right required a small adjustment to the artwork layout, which Desound flagged early enough that it was a minor change rather than a last-minute problem.
• Fabric finish was chosen for print fidelity and acoustic performance together. Some fabric options looked better in samples but performed less well acoustically. We went with the recommendation that balanced both rather than optimizing for one.
• Edge and mounting detail was kept flush with the wall to avoid a heavy framed look that would have broken the visual flow of the installation.
What the installation actually changed
Installation took two days. The café was closed the first day and opened as normal on the second while the remaining panels were finished in a section we could isolate. We did not lose a full trading day, which mattered.
The changes we noticed immediately and in the weeks after:
• The noise level during peak hours dropped noticeably. Not silent — it is a busy café and it should feel alive — but conversations now stay at the table they started at. The bleed across the room that customers had been commenting on is gone.
• The wall became the visual centrepiece it was always meant to be. Within the first week of reopening, three customers asked specifically about the artwork. Two of them photographed it. That is the kind of response you want from a feature wall, and it is not something a plain acoustic panel would have generated.
• Branded print plus absorption in one surface. This is the part that is genuinely hard to achieve with separate solutions. A printed mural on a hard wall does nothing for sound. A plain acoustic panel does nothing for brand identity. Having both in the same installation, performing both functions at the same level, removed a trade-off we had assumed was unavoidable.
• Staff noticed it too. Our baristas mentioned within a few days that the counter felt calmer during rush periods. When your team feels less worn down at the end of a shift, that is a real operational outcome, not just an aesthetic one.
If you are fitting out or refreshing a Dubai café, restaurant, or retail space and you are looking for a wall treatment that works acoustically and visually at the same time, the work speaks for itself. Their Custom Printed Acoustic Panels in Dubai service handles the full scope — from artwork specification and print production through to installation — which matters when the visual result and the acoustic result have to land together.
What I would tell another café owner considering this
Start with the wall that is causing you the most acoustic problem and has the most visual potential. Those two things usually overlap in hospitality spaces — the large open surfaces that look impressive when empty are the same ones making the room loud when it is full.
Bring your brand artwork or a brief to the first conversation rather than waiting until the acoustic specification is locked. The print and the absorption are designed together, and decisions made early in the process — fabric choice, panel layout, seam placement — affect both outcomes. Getting those conversations happening at the same time rather than sequentially saved us from a redesign we would otherwise have needed.
The result we ended up with solved a problem we had been managing around for over a year, and it turned a wall we had not known what to do with into the strongest visual element in the space. That combination is not easy to find off a shelf.