Patty O's Cafe & Branding

Visual Identity Design

Chef O'Connell's style can be labelled as fantastical, playful, and daring. He has spent more than four decades turning a small Virginian town into an opulent fairytale hamlet. With that in mind, the branding for Patty O's had to possess an idyllic feeling –– as if it were pulled directly from the pages of a beloved children's storybook, refined, and then dropped into our world.

The logo for Patty O's was intentionally crafted to contrast with contemporary standards of branding. The hand-drawn logo purposefully disregards modern logo conventions with its busy, multicolored and intricate illustration. The cartoon-like floral illustrations present an innocent, childlike feel, whereas the gilded lettering speaks to elegance and stature. A series of monochrome vector elements were made to bolster the brand, when needed.

The primary logotype was crafted to echo vintage storybook covers and prominently displays the owner's initials –– POC. An ideal font was found, deconstructed and then redrawn to produce letterforms that felt nostalgic, yet fashionable and compelling. Aspects of the main logo were simplified and reimagined into a continuous repeating pattern, wrapping around packaging and other printed items. Furthermore, a secondary logo was hand-drawn and depicted in the style of an antique, gilded window display, decorated with floral embellishments.

A style guide summarizes the full branded persona of Patty O’s, documenting the specific typographic choices, color codes, and logo usage applications that take these independent design elements and wield them as a unified, sophisticated design system.