BAR SPREZZATURA
TEAM
Kim Sutherland, Sara Hollowood, Nick Humbel, and Ridan Arellano at OMFGCO
MY ROLE
Brand Designer
KEYWORDS
BRANDING, GRAPHIC DESIGN, DESIGN RESEARCH, POSITIONING, IDENTITY, BRAND STRATEGY
ABOUT
Bar Sprezzatura is a Italian cicchetti bar by the Michael Mina group, located in the financial district of San Francisco. They came to us to develop an attainable, effortless, and sophisticated brand design that felt mid-century Italian without being precious (George Clooney on a boat was a key point of reference).
PROCESS
There were three main stages in our process:
- Aligning on our definition of success with the client, and our understanding of their vision through a series of conversations and questionnaires. We identified three major challenges and flipped them into areas of opportunity.
- Secondary research to identify the audience for the restaurant, and researching the competitive landscape in the city. We also identified brands who were successfully executing a similar concept, understanding what they were doing well and what we could learn from them.
- Honed in on our articulation of the brand in its nascent stages, through an is/is not list, keywords, and mood boards.
OUTCOMES
The research and positioning all led to three different brand directions, the one shown here was mine. It was not the one the client chose, but the illustration concepts stayed on for the final iteration.
LEARNINGS
Branding is so much more than just creating a logo, it’s creating an experiential narrative around a brand and inviting a customer to be a part of it.