Barbarella is an italian restaurant in Calgary pulling influence from the coasts of Amalfi Italy. Fusing this with the rich catches from the Pacific Northwest, the client sought to create a sense of a place within the restaurant’s experience.
Glasfurd & Walker ran with the challenge developing a gorgeous typographic solution that pulls influence from the Art Deco era, a time period of art that continues to thrive in the many coastal, tourist towns. The typography is sturdy in one sense, but in another it’s curvy creating a highly interesting composition that is reminiscent of both the shape of a recreational boat and the female form. Both of which influence the brand’s name. Barbarella means “foreign woman” in Latin, and recreational boating is a key part of the Amalfi experience.
From this basis, the design team continued their expression of South Italian coastline visuals by adopting the iconic striped umbrella pattern one finds on every beach. Normally thick stripes can be difficult to work into compositions, but the team found a great solution in nestling the brand type within a stripe as seen on the matchbook designs.
The restaurant’s visual identity builds from touch point to touchpoint creating a coastal, mediterranean look collectively and individually.
