A Long Ride For A Cup Of Coffee

Plenty of summer interns go the extra mile. Steve Ounanian is going the extra 1,400 miles.

Ounanian, a 21-year-old UCLA design student, spent the summer at 86 the onions in Venice, Calif. He credits that experience—in particular, his exposure to people’s daily rituals—for inspiring him and a friend to make a 25-day bike ride, starting this week, from Los Angeles to Seattle.

At the shop, Ounanian noticed “design rituals” that creatives like Chad Rea and Nico Ammann relied on to craft “emotional connections between brands and consumers,” as well as other rituals, from his own constant e-mail checking and water-glass filling to a colleague’s habit of disappearing for 20 minutes—verified by egg timer—every day at 4:30 p.m.