Responses by Ron Thompson and Matt Titone, designers and creative directors, ITAL/C.
Background: The purpose of this project was to design the brand identity and collateral system for Mesiba, the main restaurant at the new Moxy Hotel location opening in the heart of the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The target audience for the property skewed to a younger, hip crowd.
Design thinking: Since the restaurant is an Israeli food concept, we largely drew design inspiration from Tel Aviv architecture and the Bauhaus movement that is associated with it. We also wanted the brand look and feel to be lively, bold and fun to play off classic New York City nightlife motifs.
Challenges: Overall, it was a really fun project to work on with a restaurant group client who appreciates our style and branding that stands out. One of the more challenging aspects was the fact that we never got a chance to see the actual location in person. We never even saw site photos until after the restaurant was open and getting PR, which was also kind of a nice surprise. Having a sense of place is definitely super helpful and can be inspiring for the creative process, but imagining what it could be and having a conceptual blank canvas from across the country is also pretty fun. As with any project, we try to look at the challenges as opportunities.
Favorite details: We love how the shapes in the letterforms we designed actually played off architectural elements in the interior design of the space. It ended up being a nice little “wink.”
New lessons: It’s always interesting to dive into a new project for any client, even if it’s just a restaurant in a hotel. For this project in particular, we dove into researching Israeli food, the meaning of mesiba (which means “party” in Hebrew), and how to translate that into a design and visual vocabulary, as well as exploring Bauhaus design and integrating that feeling into the work as well. It was all a fun discovery process for us.
Visual influences: We were first inspired by the Bauhaus design and architecture movement. Then, we thought about how to incorporate that Tel Aviv bohemian vibe mixed with classic New York City nightlife sensibilities and motifs to make it all feel modern, fun and playful.
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