Olea Kiosks Brand Guidelines: From a Downey Cabinet Workshop to Self-Service Kiosks

Cabinetry, exhibits and a laserdisc kiosk.

Olea Kiosks traces its start to 1975 in Downey, California. The company says the master carpenter Fernando Olea and his sons Rene and Mark began by designing and building furniture, cabinetry, display exhibits and commissioned works of art in a small rented RV garage. In May 2008 the Los Angeles Business Journal described the same beginning in plainer terms: a business started that year by several members of the Olea family, specialising in custom cabinetry and related products, which by the early 1980s was designing trade-show exhibits meant to draw in passers-by and advertise products or services.

The move into kiosks came out of that exhibit work. The Los Angeles Business Journal reported that in 1983 Olea built its first kiosk to incorporate electronics: an event directory at an equestrian fair that drew its data from a high-speed laserdisc player. The company’s own history places that first kiosk at the Los Angeles County Fair and describes a 20-inch television with a touchscreen overlay. Between 1977 and 1986, the company says, it also took on museum work, including a children’s educational exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles.

The kiosk side grew into the main business over two decades. According to the company, Rene Olea’s son Frank Olea joined in 1993 and became the main product developer for a new kiosk division, which became the company’s primary focus in 2003. Frank Olea was quoted as vice president in 2008 and is named as chief executive in later trade reports, including Vending Market Watch in 2015 and Kiosk Marketplace in 2023. Family ownership is part of how the business presents itself: the 2008 article reported that about ten family members worked there, and the company’s website still calls Olea Kiosks a family-owned and operated company; its history page speaks of four generations.

Wood first, then metal and touchscreens.

The trade-show background shaped the products. The Los Angeles Business Journal reported in 2008 that Olea’s kiosks had originally been made only of wood and that the company by then worked in plastic, metal and leather. Frank Olea told the paper that exhibit work still influenced everything it made, and called a kiosk “three-dimensional advertising” that has to attract people and then lead them through a process. The same article quoted the kiosk-industry analyst Francie Mendelsohn of Summit Research Associates, who said the company had moved beyond the simpler models it used to build and praised its recent designs, and Patrick Avery, then editor of Kiosk Marketplace, who called Olea a recognised player in the self-service industry.

The uses in that 2008 report ranged widely: “giving kiosks” for churches, supplied through the donation programme SecureGive, whose founder told the paper Olea had become its sole supplier; a photo booth for hospital maternity wards; and self-checkout machines. Later launches were reported model by model. In May 2015 Vending Market Watch covered two enclosures built for micro-market operators, with 19-inch touchscreens, barcode scanners and front access for servicing against a wall. In November 2023 Kiosk Marketplace reported a redesign of the Geneva, a model for amusement parks and attractions made in matching indoor and outdoor versions, with more room for printers and cash devices and a new locking system. In April 2024 the company announced the Boulder, an outdoor kiosk with a 22-inch sunlight-readable touchscreen in free-standing and wall-mounted forms, which it showed at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago.

Today the company’s website groups its range into standard designs, custom kiosks and OEM manufacturing for other firms, and lists markets including healthcare check-in, government identity and biometric enrolment, bill payment, hotel and casino check-in, restaurant food ordering, cinema and theme-park ticketing, and retail. One standard model it has described is the Franklin, a modular bill-payment kiosk that accepts and dispenses banknotes, dispenses coins, reads checks and takes card payments. The company also says the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan recognised it for its kiosk manufacturing and its designs for outdoor use.

Self-service hardware.

Self-service kiosk makers sell machines that most people meet without ever learning who built them. The tall touchscreen totem in a fast-food restaurant, the check-in unit in a hotel lobby or an airport hall, the ticket machine at a station and the self-checkout lane in a shop usually carry the name of the restaurant, hotel or retailer, not the maker. Acrelec’s own range, for example, is named by screen size and use, from a 22-inch counter-top unit to 27-inch floor-standing and outdoor kiosks.

So the makers present themselves to buyers rather than to the public. Their websites lead with markets — restaurants, retail, hospitality, healthcare, transport, government — and with the parts of a job they can take on: enclosure design, payment terminals and receipt printers, cash handling, software, installation, remote monitoring and field service. Counts of installed machines and the quality and environmental standards they say they are certified to are common, and are given here only as each company states them.

Trade fairs are where the products are shown. Retail-technology shows such as the National Retail Federation’s Big Show in New York and EuroShop in Düsseldorf draw kiosk and self-checkout makers alongside point-of-sale suppliers, and the trade title Kiosk Marketplace promotes an automated-retail and kiosk show of its own in Miami Beach. Trade titles such as Kiosk Marketplace and QSR Web also report the makers’ acquisitions and moves.

The companies in this group range from founder-built firms in France, Portugal, Germany and the United States to subsidiaries of larger Asian technology groups. This guide sets out what can be checked about each — who founded it, who owns it now and what it says about where its kiosks are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Built in-house in Southern California.

Olea has stayed in Southern California while moving from garage to factory. The 2008 article placed its headquarters in Artesia; today its website gives an address in Cerritos, describes a vertically integrated design and manufacturing facility there, and carries the line “Manufactured in the USA.” The company says every part of the fabrication process is done in-house, with departments for industrial design, graphics, mechanical and structural engineering, integration, installation and field service, and that controlling every phase of a project in-house lets it control quality, pricing and delivery. Those are the company’s own descriptions. On quality systems, its website says it is working toward ISO 9001 certification.

The company’s published language leans on craft. Its about page speaks of an “old-fashioned commitment to quality, craftsmanship, and service” and of a team of designers, engineers and metal craftsmen who combine hand sketches and prototype building with newer processes, and it says it designs kiosks to suit a client’s brand and the space they stand in. Trade reports describe the same offer in practice: customisable colour and graphic options on the 2015 micro-market units, and a choice of colours and custom vinyl branding on the 2024 Boulder.

For a design guide, Olea Kiosks shows a kiosk maker that grew out of cabinetry and trade-show exhibits and still sells the enclosure as part of its client’s brand. Compare KIOSK Information Systems, another American kiosk maker, and RedyRef. For this guide we use walnut brown, steel grey and a warm off-white with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Olea Kiosks’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.