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The other day I sat in a restaurant in a small Dalmatian town (Croatia) and ordered my favourite meal, with a glass of wine
The restaurant is beautiful and serves traditional Dalmatian food, and if you ask me I think they are one of the best in town. The place has that traditional feel - stone walls, objects that are passed through generations, the atmosphere is nice, and did i mention the food is great?
I know the owner and he just happned to see me in thebcorner of the place, sat down and had some wine with me. A quick chit chat turned into a 3 hour long conversation.
The cost of the ingredients went up, and he was thinking of raising prices, but he had some concerns. He was worried people might stop coming to the place.
I asked him 🧐:
“Why would someone choose your place over another one in this town? I mean there are other great restaurants in the radius of 200m!
He said instantly:
“We have the best food in town!”
And he is right, I don’t disagree.
But that alone isn’t enough. There is no emotional connection to that.
The owner was worried if he raised the price, people would go to another place. And ti this point we are still competing on great food. He had mentioned it a few times through the conversation, but I felt there is more to it, just had to dig deeper.
Then, later in the conversation, he mentioned that they have local fishermen who fish specifically for them and that the pasta and gnocchi are hand made.
“Aha. There it is!”🧐😮
That’s the meaning, the story, the value.
That’s the little piece that makes the restaurant more than just a place with good food.
Now I know the story, it’s not just an ordinary traditional restaurant. This place has history, tradition, meaning and a story to connect to the sea. It’s connected to local fisherman and you get that feeling of eating something fresh from the sea!
And suddenly, the price can mean something different.
This is where I think a lot of smaller businesses miss the point of branding.
They focus on prooving the product is better!
But “better” is incredibly easy to compete with. It is a broad statement and is not defined. What does better mean?
Your competitor can say they're better too.
The real question is:
“What makes you meaningful?”
Because people don't always pay more simply because something is objectively better.
Sometimes they pay more because it means something to them!
The owner did not have to invent a story. He just forgot one piece of the puzzle.
Finding the story that's already there — and making people see it!
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New Brand Guidelines delivered.
While it may seem trivial, this asset remains a key component of our final deliverables for every project. We offer a recommended guide for the proper use of the brand, with various layout options permitted within the visual language. This ensures the brand can expand over time with a truly functional visual system.
We always strive to be as concise as the brand allows, establishing the foundation for its effective use. This empowers the client to make informed decisions and implement each brand element in the ideal scenario with optimal adjustments.
"As concise as the brand allows" is the hard part, because the guidelines that get ignored are almost never the thin ones. Curious whether you pair the PDF with a live component library so the document only has to explain the rules and doesn't also have to enforce them - that split has saved me a lot of pages.
Sardinhas / Brand, Packaging & Campaign
Sardinhas is Portuguese for sardines. Nothing more, nothing less.
An independent brand concept for a Portuguese sardine tin, built end to end: identity, illustration, packaging, 3D and a ten-image editorial campaign. Four boards trace the work.
01 / Identity and illustration. The wordmark is hand-cut lettering with a sardine living inside the D. One rule runs through the whole system: the letters stay charcoal, and only the fish in the D takes the colour of each flavour. The illustration is a three-ink linocut shoal, sea blue and charcoal on cream paper, with a third ink that changes with the flavour: lemon, olive, tomato, piri-piri. Style explored in Midjourney V8, locked with a master image and derived across the four flavours.
02 / Packaging. Two skins. Outside, a printed paper wrap with folded ends, the way Portuguese conservas have been sold for a century. Inside, a lithographed tin with the same shoal on the lid and the body in the flavour ink. Four flavours: Lemon, Olive Oil, Tomato, Piri-Piri. All texts, nutrition and barcode in English. Every tin and wrap was built and rendered in Blender, textures generated from the vector artwork at 20 px per mm.
03 / Campaign. One table, one sun. Cream plaster, hard late-afternoon light, the same hand in every frame. The colour never comes from the ground: it comes from the tin, the printed linen napkin and the food. Full petiscos tables, the tin opened at the centre, a shop interior, a printed paper bag, four napkins for four flavours. Photographs generated with Nano Banana Pro through Higgsfield at 4K, always with the Blender renders as product reference.
Tools: Midjourney V8 for the illustration language, Blender 5.2 for packaging and renders, Nano Banana Pro via Higgsfield for the campaign, Claude Code as the direction hub for the whole project.
Creative direction, brand identity, packaging and AI-assisted visual development by Mauricio Pontual / MP House Studio. Independent concept, not commissioned.
#BrandIdentity #PackagingDesign #ArtDirection #Illustration #Blender #GenerativeAI #FoodPhotography #Sardines
The rule that colour never comes from the ground in the campaign shots, only from the tin, napkin and food, is the kind of constraint that makes a whole shoot feel intentional instead of styled. Four boards to cover identity through campaign is thorough for a personal concept piece.
Project Showcase: Brand Identity Design for Burger Lover 🍔🎨
As a designer working with small businesses, I recently led the visual identity design for Burger Lover, a fast-casual restaurant looking to establish a distinct, memorable presence in a competitive market.
My focus was on translating the brand’s core personality into a clean, cohesive visual system that bridges the gap between digital marketing and physical packaging.
Key Design Deliverables
Logo & Visual Identity: Crafted a modern, scale able mark built for high legibility on everything from app icons to storefront signage.
Packaging & Touch points: Designed branded takeout boxes, custom burger wraps, and sticker seals engineered to create an elevated unboxing experience.
Color Palette & Typography: Paired appetite-stimulating primary tones with strong display typography to establish instant visual recognition.
Social & Marketing Assets: Developed structured templates to ensure consistent visual hierarchy across digital channels.
I’d love to get feedback from fellow designers! How do you feel about the packaging layout and visual balance? Any insights on the typographic hierarchy would be greatly appreciated.
Sick 🔥