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CRAFT: Behind the scenes of London's newest culinary hit

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Here Design has created the identity, signage and packaging for a new British dining project called CRAFT London, an ambitious new project from the renowned young British chef Stevie Parle. The aim behind the design, according to the consultancy’s creative partner Mark Paton, is to create branding that doesn't blend into the background, but reflects the dynamism and defiantly British style of the site's modern, but soulful interior. CRAFT incorporates a restaurant, cocktail bar and café, which are based in Greenwich, London. The consultancy designed the visual identity and packaging for all three venues, working alongside Tom Dixon's Design Research Studio, which designed the interiors.

Here Design has created the branding for a new British dining project called CRAFT London

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Here Design worked hard to differentiate the visual identities of each venue, making sure each one had a unique atmosphere and identity. You'll notice that the CRAFT word-mark remains the same, but the background textures and colour schemes change to reflect the different interior environments. The mandate given to the consultancy, was to create a strong brand identity that would convey New British contemporary craft to a metropolitan audience looking for a high quality food and drink experience, rooted in authentic and thoughtful production processes.

Paton said: “Our vision of the branding was to create a more contemporary understanding of craft. We came up with this idea of idiosyncrasy and mess. We wanted to show the expressive qualities of craftsmanship, and express the fact that a piece of handmade pottery will entail mistakes. In all three of the venues, the idea was to synchronise with the interiors but also fight against them, to make people really aware of the printed objects such as menus and flyers. We played around to see which brush strokes and colour schemes best suited the architectural spaces.”

Introducing CRAFT London

The café’s visual identity uses a background of roughly-painted pink and blue brush strokes, while the restaurant’s branding is more bold, created with a bold marker pen. The cocktail bar’s identity, meanwhile, incorporates the use of paint, which jars with the marble-finished surfaces. Paton said it was “About making printed objects that are there to be noticed.” The work wonderfully compliments the interior work from Tom Dixon, and should help the brand stand out in the competitive Greenwich area.

Here Design brings a markedly different, but consistent visual identity to each venue...

Caz Hildebrand, partner and designer at Here Design, said of their designs: “We had a degree of freedom to make marks unselfconsciously, and could use a range of mediums, from paint to charcoal to biro. The branding’s flexibility means there is a limitless palette of marks for any expression of CRAFT London, from packaging to signage to events.” Steve Parle added: “Working with Here Design is always a pleasure. With their work on CRAFT London they seem to have excelled even their usual high standards. When you work with a design company you hope they’ll get what you're doing and represent it authentically, Here, have taken what I'm doing and made it a lot better. There’s no one I'd rather work with.”

The interior design of the venues comes courtesy of Tom Dixon's Design Research Studio

CRAFT labels itself as “New British.” CRAFT London focuses on quality in production by collaborating with modern experts, fanatics and obsessives to craft world class products through the roasting of coffee, smoking of fish, bee keeping, meat curing, fermentation of vegetables and the creation of a contemporary kitchen garden. In other words, it's pretty damn fancy! Both the restaurant dishes and the products are created using almost exclusively British produce bought from farmers Parle knows and trusts, and the interior is crammed with the best of Britain from Scottish tweed, to British limestone and London designed furniture and lighting. It's about as British as it's possible to be without resorting to derogatory clichés.

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