Sisters Identity
The Challenge
Sisters is a restaurant and bar in Tucson, in a building next door to La Rosa. Both sit at the former site of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, a Franciscan convent. The site has layers of cultural, semiotic and historical residue.
The owners wanted an identity that took that lineage seriously.
The Solution
I built the identity through the building’s historic processes instead of simply tracing their surface or reaching for retro affect. The wordmark reenacts the 1939 signwriter’s hand, made with a lettering quill and enamel; the typography reenacts the sisters’ on-premise copyshop, automated in ExtendScript. I painted the menu by hand. The blue is the ubiquitous blue of the working kitchen, so collateral prints on-brand with no Pantone matching. Photography documents the kitchen’s material life and conveys unpretentious intimacy with the food and the people who make it. In each system I take the lineage seriously, carrying the logic of its origin.
Logo
In making the wordmark, my aim was repeating the sign painter’s conditions of making rather than making a tracing of the word ‘sisters’ on the historic sign itself. The vector wordmark records the hand-made strokes and keeps the asymmetries from real brushwork. I made two cuts: sharp for high-fidelity reproduction, soft for environmental and atmospheric application. A full lockup carries secondary copy set in Helvetica with the letraset extendscript.
Color
The primary brand color is a mid-blue.
I chose the blue from research in the kitchen. Cambro containers, “use first” labels, painters tape with prep dates on deli containers, and the blue stripe on a bar mop: foodservice runs on a family of saturated mid-blues, mostly between Reflex Blue and Process Blue. This family of blues is recognizable on sight to anyone who has worked in a kitchen.
Sisters blue is specified inside that family. It reads as kitchen-blue but is distinct enough to belong to the brand. I made this choice also with the intention of facilitating easy, on-brand rapid-fire production. Things move fast in food, and I knew the brand might need unexpected collateral made quickly. Commercial printers, embroidery shops, and restaurant supply companies all stock spot color blues from the same family by default and the brand can use them cleanly without picky Pantone matching. Stock blue checkerboard paper from a supplier reads as on brand. Standard ‘blue’ stamp pads read as on brand.
Magenta and gold accents extend the palette both forward and backward in time, as well as tying it visually to La Rosa. The blue, gold and black combination is in conversation with classic diners and cafeterias. The magenta moves in the opposite direction-- it’s unexpected, youthful and fresh. Pink and blue together appear throughout the space.
Typography
The type system carries the same logic into a different medium. The wordmark traces a sign painter’s hand. The body type traces a copyshop typesetter’s. Both belong to the building because both happened in it. The ExtendScript code simulates per-letter variation in placement and rotation, automating a discontinued midcentury process I’d otherwise have to do by hand, making it possible for other designers to quickly and easily render graphics with the appearance of bespoke handset type.
Illustration
I also made a hand-painted menu with original illustrations as a one-off art piece for the restaurant. The rest of the identity refuses that kind of regional dress-up. I shot and art-directed the photography and advertising to match the restraint. They treat the space and its objects as documents, the identity of the restaurant is intended to serve its food and the relation of people in it.
