recent work : sebastian joe’s

I finished up this self initiated project of mine a few months ago, but realized that I hadn’t shared the story with you all yet. So as I was finalizing Rowan Made this fall, I got the idea of developing a conceptual (and fake) project in order to help round out my portfolio and showcase the type of clients I love working with. I settled on rebranding Sebastian Joe’s, a local ice cream shop here in Minneapolis that I frequent, as I thought it would be a fun one to explore and build out in a variety of mediums. Sebastian Joe’s was the first place to provide premium made ice cream to the Twin Cities metro area, so there is a lot of history and pride found within this establishment. I wanted to solidify their brand by mixing nostalgia with a modern twist. That said, the colors, typography, and texture you see here provide a nice balance for this community driven ice cream shop.

After finalizing the primary logo, I went ahead and carried out the brand into a variety of print elements, like banner shaped business cards, frequent buyer punch cards, flyers, and stickers. It was fun to carry out the identity from start to finish and envision how Sebastian Joe’s could use all of these moving parts in a cohesive way. All in all, it’s been one of the most fun projects to develop – despite it’s conceptual nature. I wasn’t hired to do any of this, and everything you see here simply lives in my portfolio, which is totally fine! I put just as much work into this as I would with any project, so perspective clients can see something different and unique that I love doing. It’s a win win! Plus, who knows … I may just present this to the actual establishment some day. You never know. ;)

PS. Above is the moodboard I created for this project several months back. Before curating all of the images, I stopped by Sebastian Joe’s for some ice cream and sat down to take notes on the overall atmosphere and experience. By combining this with a little bit of research, I was able to create a base aesthetic to expand from. And hey, I kind of want to live in that moodboard.