“Testarossa , part of the Fearless Restaurants group, is a restaurant offering Italian American cuisine from a funky and unexpected Art Deco building in Glen Mills, PA. The identity, takes a cue from the curvy exteriors of the building and, inspiration from Italian actress Monica Vitti in her role as criminal-mastermind-turned-secret-agent in the 1966 film Modesty Blaise, which, can be summarized as “Charming and sexy”. This all translates into a lovely custom wordmark that forms the letters from independent, extra curvy segments and heart- and lip-shaped dingbats, all with a tight squeeze across the middle. Hard to describe, easy to appreciate. A standalone icon takes the same shapes to create a red-haired woman with pigtails as a nod to the name, which means redhead in Italian. The red, magenta, and purple color palette is a welcome change from the typical Italian American restaurant and further establishes a link with the building’s exterior as it lights up like a sunset at dusk.”- from BrandNew Favorites
Client: Fearless Restaurants
Triple Crown is a restaurant venue, that doubles as a location for weddings and special events, by offering hospitality services on their newly renovated ballrooms and gardens. The brand is a blend of the elegant country club with a fanciful fairy tale.
Client: Fearless Restaurants
A fabulous wine lounge in the Palm Spring desert.
The flavors imparted on food and wine are dictated by the region, climate, soil and topography, and in the same way we wanted the design to reflect the experience of drinking amazing wine and eating fabulous food in a place like Palm Springs, a resort destination with its own mid-century aesthetics, located between the shadow of San Jacinto mountains and the vastness of the desert.
Client: New Frontier Wine Co.
El Cochinito is an authentic Cuban restaurant in Sunset Boulevard, LA, established in 1988, with a loyal clientele and delicious food. The brief was to update the brand and yet retain the tradition and flavor of Cuban cuisine and local neighborhood hang out.
Client: Sobremesa Hospitality
A rebrand of the historical restaurant in Philadelphia responsible for the farm-to-table approach. Unfortunately the rebrand was never implemented.
Client: Fearless Restaurants
Bolita is a little island of all things Cuba in the trendy Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. We used pastel colors and Art Deco typography to conjure the Caribbean breeze and relaxed atmosphere. This family owned, casual bar features exquisite Mojitos and delicious Croquetas. “Bolita” means “little ball“ in Spanish and refers to a popular Cuban lottery featuring numbers, objects and animals, (number 1 is a horse, 100 is a toilet!). One of the menu covers doubles as a Bingo board repeating the idea of lottery, and Cuban style fun.
Client: Sobremesa Hospitality
An Italian restaurant that celebrates the cuisine and lifestyle of the owner’s ancestral heritage. We wanted to create a sense of spectacle and wonder as well being feminine and fun. The brand story become an Italian version of Alice in Wonderland, with painting white roses red with tomato, shrinking prices with wines for Sunday meals, mad private parties, and floating smiles for happy hours.
Client: Fearless Restaurants
A Modern Mexican Fiesta
This is our third edition of this delightful Mexican restaurant with outposts in Philadelphia and New York City and now; Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The restaurant is situated right in front of the beach, at the W Hotel, so we wanted to merge the casual beach vibe with the sophistication of this boutique hotel. We recreated a modern version of the “Papel Picado” look from Mexican festivities and made the “calaveras” from the Day of the Dead, dance, jump and do all sorts of naughty things. The saturated color gradations are borrowed from the cheap popular Mexican posters.
Client: Starr Restaurants
An takeout burrito place in Philly catered to an irreverent and urban audience (unfortunately was never finalized)
Client: Starr Restaurants
Bulfinch Social is located at the Boxer Hotel, on Bulfinch Triangle in Boston. The hotel building was designed in 1890 and is a prismatic shape to fit with the triangular layout of the streets. The relevant form of the building and of the urban plan dictated the design of the logo. The whole area was a the 3rd largest furniture manufacturer in the country at the turn of the century, and we designed postcards check presenters to tell the story of this illustrious past, with the logo blind embossed.
Comment ça se dit en anglais ? Brunch?
Louie Louie is a French-inspired American bistro in Philadelphia. The decor mixes colorful organic forms of the Art Nouveau movement with a relaxed seventies vibe. Adding a dash of timeless grand European café, the result is eclectic, and surprising. We based the logo on Aldo Novarese's 1973 Sintex typeface and utilized other supporting typefaces that are contemporary versions of the heavy Didots and geometric sans serif of the seventies. We limited the palete to orange, gold, dark teal and powder blue to unite all the elements, and echo the energy and happiness of the typography.
Client: Fearless Restaurants
Winner: Communication Arts Typography Annual, February 2019
A Un-Holy Communion
The concept is based on “Le Comptoir”, a famous Parisian “bar-a-vins“ (“comptoir” means counter in French). The restaurant offers exquisite small plates of french bistro-brasserie interpretation, paired with fantastic wines from around the world. The lovely Parker Hotel in Palm Springs, California is decorated with whimsy by Jonathan Adler. We wanted to extend the upscale, desert sensibility to the restaurant and create a tongue-in-cheek experience, where your wine is sacred but the trappings are not. Catholic imagery informs the baroque splendor of the logo, the illuminated manuscript placemat, the gold murals on the outside walls, and the “holy wafer” coaster. After your meal, you will receive a hollow red hymnal with your check and a few of the 14 different cards describing the lives of actual catholic patron saints for vintners, alcoholics and everyday sinners.
Client: The Parker Hotel
We give a class at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco, each fall. This year theme is based on the famous old aphorism ascribed to the first-century Roman gourmand Apicius, “We eat first with our eyes”.
A Sophisticated Neighbourhood Restaurant
Chef Terry Harwood wanted to create a welcoming restaurant perfectly suited for the West Village, in Manhattan. A place for neighbors and visitors alike to meet, dine and relax together. The elegantly simple branding, reflects the refined taste of Chef Harwood’s cuisine in a warm, old New York style setting.
Client: Terry Harwood/ Kim Nguyen Block
A Mexican market in the middle of New York City financial district
After the 9/11, the area around the World Trade Center was revitalized and a blend of financial services and families were in need of a happy place to go nearby. Full of life and fun “El Vez NYC” fitted right in, offering luscious, popular and celebratory Mexican food. The brand is colorful full of humor and human touches.
Client: Starr Restaurants.
Winner: Type Directors Club annual
A French bistro meets American Miami Art Deco.
This lovely brasserie with traditional french doors and outdoor space transported me to the famous Renoir painting “Moulin de la Gallette“, with people drinking, eating and having fun over Montmartre, in Paris. The name celebrates the diversity and variety of human experience, and we echoed that diversity with fun combinations of 19th century engravings; lobsters, crabs and monkeys in bird cages, brochettes with whimsical and unexpected assortments of food. Pssst, the profiteroles are to die for!
Client: Starr Restaurants
Winner Type Directors Club Annual
An island of civility and good food in the midst of partisan divisions.
A delightful and popular, upscale French bistro-brasserie, Le Diplomate is now one of the “must-go” destinations in Washington DC. Even former EPA head Scott Pruitt, got into trouble after ordering a motorcade, so as not to be late for his reservation. The branding narrative was to transform the restaurant in a safe space where political differences can be checked at the door, and one can enjoy a delicious meal in old European grandeur. The traditional dove of peace with an olive branch in her mouth, encapsulates the branding.
Client: Starr Restaurants
Winner: Type Directors Club Annual, Communication Art Annual, Print Magazine Annual
“Ándale, ándale!”
With the huge success of the Mexican themed “El Vez NYC” in the heart of the financial district, it was time to expand and customize the take-out business next door. The lines of office workers from the area are always out the door, and the tag line could not be more appropriate, ”go on, go on“. In order to contrast with colorful El Vez, the brand is mostly black and white with hints of day-glow color.
Client: Starr Restaurants
Thank you for the earth’s bounty.
“Grato” is an Italian family restaurant in West Palm Beach, Florida, created by Chef Clay Conley. It also means “gratitude” in Italian. For Chef Conley, appreciation for Italian food is proportional to the quality and freshness of its ingredients. Based on this idea, of using a fresh produce to tell the story of character and tradition, we conflated two sunny locations, Florida and Italy with citrus fruit, to represent both narratives. The logo, in a triangle shape, is a reference to early 20th century travel stamps from idilic destinations.
Client: Clay Conley
Winner of Type Directors Annual
“A global-inspired fare in retro-style digs”
This midcentury modern restaurant in South Beach, Florida, is an outpost of a Philadelphia Martini bar, with great drinks and continental fare. We used color to tie all the elements together and old kodachromes to convey a vintage sensibility. Our favorite element is the watercolor illustrations of drinks, which were a standard on 1940’s menus, but nowadays come back to life with the click of a finger on one’s iPhone.
Client: Starr Restaurants
“The food is delicious and even better when we smoke a joint and stare at the spinning logo. Wow!” - Anonymous customer
Serving modestly priced, healthy Thai food in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, MyThai needed something extra to call attention to itself. We designed an ambigram logo (can be read upside-down as well) because with a limited budget, the rotating sign outside the restaurant became the main attraction. The palette corresponds to the colors of the curries (red, yellow and green) and we introduced Buddha hands in different gestures, as a decorative element. The client later commissioned us to design labels for the bottles of infused drinks he created which were sold in the dining area at the restaurant.
Client: Vitoria Taborda/Michael Monahan.
Art from above.
Verde is the restaurant in the Perez Art Museum, in Miami, residing in a spectacular building designed by Herzog & de Meuron, with a flat roof and a garden that hangs from the ceiling. We took the building as inspiration and modeled the logo to the architecture, adding a little symbol to the name which doubled as a motif for printed materials and aprons. As it’s name implies, the restaurant used primarily green, sustainable everything.
Client: Starr Restaurants
Venice/New York.
Caffè Storico, situated inside The New York Historical Society on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, brings you food from the Veneto region of Italy. We had to conceptualize what it is to eat in a historical museum setting, and what is the commonality between New York and Venice? For the first question, a museum for us is not only the keeper of art and artifacts, but also of time. On the second, Venice and New York are both islands and great centers of commerce. We looked at the Venetian palaces, and the ceilings of Tiepolo with their Venetians skies, and got inspired to depict time with the image of passing clouds. The menus are like a tall landscape, with the horizon at the bottom, and little flying machines and birds through out. Later, when we were doing an ad for the restaurant, we realized how much the sections of the pork match the different neighborhoods in Manhattan.
Client: Starr Restaurants
Italian Cuisine in Saudi Arabia.
Inspired by the floor mosaics in Taormina, Sicily, Villa Palma is an oasis under a palm tree in the desert.
Client: Flowmarq
From Philly to Paris.
Parc, a restaurant serving traditional French bistro fare in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square Park, was a collaboration with Matteo Bologna. The strategy was to recall the venerable tradition of Parisian café culture, but create an experience that sits firmly in the present. By working closely with interior designer Shawn Hausman to integrate the graphics and interior, we ensured a cohesive brand experience. Our extraordinarily detailed identity system and branding reflects the restaurant’s modern approach to the venerable French bistro theme, and transports diners from Philly to Paris. Parc has become a veritable dining destination in a food-loving city, and a crowd-pleasing favorite under the STARR Restaurants empire.
Client Starr Restaurants
Winner of Type Directors Club Annual
From our family to yours.
Butter Flour Sugar is a small family bakery and catering firm in Manhattan, that was created based on recipes passed from mother, to daughter, to granddaughter. We wanted to convey the emotional bonds of family and the joy of tradition and connection.
Client: Pauline de Trabuc
An Italian restaurant in Philadelphia, by chef Chris Painter, where food is Art.
Client: Starr Restaurants
