After years of various adventures, my sister and her boyfriend suddenly settled on reviving the old cafe on board the three-hour ferry to the Danish holiday destination Anholt. They called it Mad og Ro, meaning food and calm, and asked me to create a logo and a visual identity for the menus, business cards, and other use cases that would come along.
It all happened fast, a quick idea became something solid, and a few days after we had the menus ready and an Instagram up and running.
Mad og Ro wants to focus on the sense of peace. The calmness that slowly settles in you, en route to your summer holiday destination for the year. Good food, based on good produce, and with plenty of time to digest. Accompanied by a glass of cold rosé.
I wanted to add to that a feeling of nostalgia, a visual sense of something solid and lasting. Hence the framing of the motif, like a postcard, or an old, almost kitch-like painting for the wall.
The iconic geographical shape of the island as a star to reach for and move towards was simply too good to let go.
The choice of Courier as the main font always comes easy to me. It revokes the dreams of typewriters and deeper meaning of the words, being carried through time in a medium as solid as paper. And, in this case, it supports the sense of nostalgia at a destination, that's almost beyond reach. And an old way of traveling, slow and steady, like the food and drinks on board.
So, here it is.
With the logo, I created a set of very basic design guidelines, that they could easily apply themselves to any use case that might come up.
And I designed the menus, ready to print in A5 and put on recycled wooden clipboards, easily replaceable with new updates and additions to the menu.
