The grand opening of Verve Bar & Restaurant

During lockdown of 2021, a client and close friend was inspired to open a cocktail bar in the historic town of Bury St Edmunds. My role in this project was to design the branding, menus, website, and social media; while my close friends led fabrication and decoration.

Verve is targeted a young professional audience interesting in enjoying a cold cocktail and stone baked pizza. The Verve brand has been designed to reflect a sense of young energy with hint of class. A modern sleek aesthetic has been carried throughout the restaurant with industrial fittings featured and venetian rendering.

Financier Display has been selected as the primary typeface for Verve as it blends elegance with might. This classic typeface compliments the industrial elements that have been carried through the bar. Its sharp letter forms give a sense of authority and class. Mulish has been selected as the secondary font due to it’s minimalistic type-form. Its simplistic design comfortably sits alongside Financier without conflict. It’s a perfect marriage of strength and simplicity.

The hexagon form of the Verve logo comes from the idea of alchemy - the process of combining ingredients in a seemingly magical fashion reminded us of a making a cocktail. This search lead us to the hexagon, a timeless form representing a carbon atom. The aesthetics of the hexagon felt perfectly for the brand, industrial, yet sleek, bold, yet beautiful.

The menus have been designed to compliment Verve’s brand with a minimal aesthetic and subtle industrial elements. The menus stack together to form a complete set and use colour to clearly distinguish the different menus.

The website has been built using Webflow and has been built from scratch. Building the website proved to be the most significant challenge of this project and the area I developed the most skills.