Giuseppe + Sons

Details. Creative direction. Branding. Web. Menus. Social media strategy & design. Interiors.

Role. Designer

Giuseppe & Sons is a contemporary subterranean Italian restaurant and all-day café in Center City Philadelphia. Crafting an old-world Italian experience, we embarked on a Roman-inspired design journey. Our goal was to create an elegant and timeless addition to the culinary scene in Philadelphia, seamlessly blending tradition with modernity.

01. The Brand

Custom matches, exterior signage, interior wayfinding, menu design, cafe overall aesthetic direction, leather imprinting, in-house photo shoots, custom facade painting, and digital strategy were among the many elements that comprised this all-encompassing project.

We focused on a warm palette to brighten the windowless subterranean restaurant, bringing in some American-Italian nostalgia and elevating the cliched red checkered tablecloth into a luxury tan and cream circular mark (seen on the matchbook, napkins, and winebook leather cover). Elements like these show how we really played with old school/new school features throughout the branding.

“There’s a certain magic to the experience.”

- CRAIG LABAN, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Ever the fans of subtle signage, we called up local hand sign painter Gibbs Connors, who transformed the exterior facade to bring some of that old world charm in.

02. Social Strategy + Web

Strategy for social was really fun for this project. I wanted to tease the opening of the restaurant, and worked with our videographer, Harry Paris, to create easter egg moments within our feeds that followers would be delighted to stumble upon. We filmed behind the scenes of the dishes being tested and prepared, as well as peaks at the interior, and hid these videos within the grid of the feed. Once clicked, the panel “opened” to reveal the video. Our followers loved this, and gave us a few viral moments even before opening!

For web, we carried the branding through by adding italian phrasing throughout, as well as graphical surprises like the checkered pattern at the footer.

“There’s a moment at Giuseppe & Sons, the new art installation from the Schulson Collective, that’s pure magic. It’s a machine made for manufacturing good times…They set out to re-create a fantasy and did it perfectly, neither overreaching nor underwhelming.”

- JASON SHEEHAN, PHILLY MAG