Few locations evoke sensory richness fairly just like the Mediterranean, from the daylight and the ocean to the gradual lunches that flip into lengthy evenings. Generally, although, it is easy to fall into the identical coastal clichés when deciphering the Med in hospitality settings.
That is why London studio Run For The Hills has taken a extra summary route in crafting the id for Olimera, a brand new restaurant that celebrates Mediterranean eating in its personal distinctive and assured means.
Led by co-founder and artistic director Chris Trotman, the studio wished visitors to really feel the Mediterranean with out being spoon-fed. The model world, he explains, “grows from a library of summary watercolour work, unfastened washes and layered marks that reference produce and place – assume tomatoes, lemons, oysters, aubergines, olives, ferns and seaweed – however extra suggestive and summary reasonably than literal.”
The visible id carries the heat and freshness of the area whereas avoiding the predictable tropes of blue tiles and sun-bleached images. As an alternative, the restaurant’s menus, murals and collateral are washed in gestural botanicals and natural brushstrokes that nod to coastlines and markets with out ever straight depicting them.
This painterly method was key to hanging the proper emotional tone. “It lets the work carry sun-warmed freshness, motion and salt-spray environment, with out tipping into postcard cliché,” says Chris. “Gestural botanicals and strokes that learn like shoreline fronds and ripples.”
Color performs an equally essential function, with a nature-inspired palette of pale melon, burnt orange, ivory, espresso black, and forest inexperienced. Elegant typography additionally provides one other layer of polish to the restaurant.
“We paired a chic wordmark and refined typographic system with a palette rooted in nature,” Chris explains. “Then we warmed all of it up with the model voice – ‘From the Mediterranean With Love’. The typography and color present restaurant-grade polish; the strapline and painterly illustrations add generosity and welcome.”
That tagline captures the center of the undertaking and the studio’s purpose to create a way of hospitality that feels easy reasonably than staged. As a studio that blends branding and inside design, their staff is used to designing identities that behave like areas in a means that is sensory, layered and human.
Regardless that the staff wasn’t behind Olimera’s interiors, their model route was developed with spatial expertise in thoughts. Chris says: “Our studio blends technique, storytelling and craft throughout branding and interiors.
“Even after we’re not main the interiors, we design manufacturers that dwell spatially. For Olimera, that meant artwork route that feels atmospheric in-hand, on menus, and wallpaper murals and framed artwork that subtly proceed the model within the restaurant. The result’s an id that behaves like a spot you possibly can step into, which may be very a lot our home method.”
From signage to social media, Olimera’s visible language is designed to remain cohesive with out feeling overly inflexible. The staff developed a complete asset system – from the core wordmark and olive logomark to illustration libraries and tone-of-voice tips – guaranteeing the model feels constant throughout print, digital, and bodily touchpoints.
“We constructed a system, not a set of one-offs,” says Chris. “It means the id can flex and develop, whereas all the time remaining unmistakably Olimera.”
This method permits for longevity, as a result of the summary watercolours aren’t simply lovely; they’re sensible. By staying suggestive of meals, nature and the ocean, the model avoids changing into tied to particular elements or seasons.
“The very last thing we ever wish to produce is one thing that appears ‘twee’,” says Chris. “Going extra summary offers it a little bit of edge. It additionally offers us breadth and longevity. The art work can flex with seasons and menu shifts (morning pastry by way of to late-night plates) whereas remaining unmistakably Olimera.”
Flexibility is essential to the restaurant’s ethos, rooted in craft and tradition but open to evolution. Olimera feels just like the form of place the place the model subtly enhances the expertise reasonably than shouting for consideration. You may not consciously discover the brushstrokes or the lettering, however you are feeling each sophistication and heat within the environment.
Run For The Hills sees it as one other nice instance of how hospitality branding would not simply embellish a restaurant, however helps outline its soul. “That is the candy spot: thought-about however by no means chilly; trendy however simple to like,” says Chris.
And Olimera appears to have discovered it.
