The Raven and Owl Pub

This personal brand project is near and dear to my heart – but boy, did it take a long time to complete! When I first started designing this brand, I knew I wanted to create something that included a few hand-drawn elements and capture the cozy, dark element of a traditional British pub. My husband and I had just traveled to Iceland in the fall, and it was chilly and crisp. I have very specific memories of coming in out of the wind and tasting a Gull beer for the first time, with a hot bowl of soup in front of me and fresh bread. Though I’ve never been to a true British pub, this brand encapsulates what I believe the style feels like.

However, soon after I began designing, I became pregnant with our first baby! Which meant zero energy, zero motivation, and zero chance of finishing this brand anytime soon. Now that the first trimester is over, I have found myself picking this project back up and being really excited to finish it.

The Brief

The goal of The Raven and Owl Pub is to create a welcoming and warm environment that gives visitors a sense of community. Part of the pub’s goal is to offer an environment that fosters good conversation and a place for people to have face-to-face conversations and laughter, along with great beer paired with delicious, traditional food.

I laid out a brand vision board to follow for the pub, including some of the elements and inspiration that would inform the brand identity design. The brand would need to include several logo versions to appear in a variety of places to promote the restaurant, including signage, social media, the website, and menu.

Logo

The logo needed to feel both traditional and modern, a concept that could work for new audiences as well as older ones. To that end, I decided to use a bold serif font and customize it by adding lines throughout and a swash detail. The logo appears as stacked, as horizontal, within an arch, and sometimes with the raven appearing behind the logo itself.

Complete Brand Identity

The complete brand identity includes a rustic color palette, two font choices, and several logos to be used throughout the various marketing materials.

The brand style guide (included in all of my branding identity projects!) lays out exactly how to use each component, and what not to do, too!