Besides the people I worked with, the most fun aspect of my 2022 workplace was when my employer would open a new restaurant. 95% of our work had to be on brand with our corporate identity, but new restaurants were a blank canvas and we could try any cool ideas we thought of.

This restaurant was called The Central Post because it was in an old, classic-architecture building that used to house the post office in downtown Toledo, Ohio. The building had Roman pillars out front and was made of big, attractive stone. After the content writers came up with a name for these restaurants, the next thing to happen was the designer would land on a mood board, color palette and brand package for the restaurant. The interior designers would then build out the place based on our branding, so it was really fun to have such a large scope of influence with what we came up with digitally.

You can see just some of the merchandise that was getting created for the restaurant; check out the entire brand package here.

I wanted to throw the design way back to the turn of the 20th century, adding gold leaf to one of the textures we’d use on our collateral like the menus and window signage but with some sharp, bold features that make it feel a little modern too. You can see the other versions that I tried out too, but I think the decision was unanimous on the one we landed on.