I was dragged out of retirement to help with consultation on setting up a new bar in our Beijing neighbourhood, Fang Bar. I say that like it took much persuading! In a former life I was a 'drinksmith' of some renown and have moonlit more than a few times over the years, so I jumped at the chance to get my hands wet again. I will give another post on the drinks themselves – which are pretty special if I do say so myself, and make great use of local produce and personality – a good drink always requires a good story behind it too. But, in addition to this I was asked to help with VI, menu design and copywriting. I think the results are decent for the relatively shallow budget.

The bar is an intimate and informal joint. Great product and fairly polished service, without the pretence of an 'uptown' bar. The bar is also trying to integrate with a neighbourhood in 'old-Beijing', which means of course it is part of a wave of hip pseudo-bohemian gentrification, but in decor and attitude the guys are treading lightly. The identity and collateral therefore wanted to be, understated, not flashy, but certainly not too consciously antiquated as so many jazz-age, speakeasy, 'discerning dispensers of authentic libation' establishments will want to do these days. Yes, I put brass rivets in there, but that's the only nod to a 'vintage purveyors' provenance, I swear. Essentially, it was drawing on traditional asian publishing vibes.

The remit for the primary print collateral; the menu, was to be compact in format, with clean and legible bilingual copy presentation. This was a really nice and technical design exercise requiring a light touch, minimal graphic design, and perfectly matched bi-lingual typography was the order of the day – this is so often so lazily done and really needs a good understanding of both latin and Chinese typographic styles. I think it ticks those boxes.