Primo Italiano

Primo Italiano is a self-directed brand identity project for a concept Italian restaurant, developed independently as an opportunity to explore illustration-driven branding, packaging design, and mockup presentation. The project encompassed a full brand identity including logo suite, hand-illustrated supporting graphics, color system, and typography, applied across lunch, dinner, and drink menus, wine bottle labels for three signature wines, packaging, business cards, coasters, and a branded apron.

The brand direction was rooted in authenticity, drawing from Italian culinary tradition for both the illustration style and color palette. A hand-drawn aesthetic felt like the most honest expression of that heritage, organic and crafted rather than polished and uniform. The seal-style logo was a format I wanted to explore, and the ingredient illustrations were developed to carry the identity across every surface consistently. Colors were inspired directly from the ingredients themselves, basil and herbs, tomatoes, pasta, and wine, grounding the palette in the concept. The deeper value of this project was in the application. Seeing the brand live across menus, packaging, labels, and coasters pushed me to think more intentionally about how design choices translate across different formats, orientations, and material contexts, and how a brand has to hold up and feel cohesive everywhere it appears.