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A place to dream
Bar Rêve is a new cocktail bar in Brooklyn, New York, influenced by Belle Époque Paris, a time known for optimism, style, and revelry. The qualities that emerged then in Paris now define Brooklyn, a cultural epicenter, home to some of the world’s most notable artists, designers, and drink-makers. Equally bold and equally enduring, the brand needed to feel classic, refined, and timeless. Showcasing understated sophistication and lasting style at every turn. Insired by the name “rêve”, which means “to dream”, we created a bespoke wordmark which was inspired by European script typefaces, but with a surprising, surreal and playful behaviour.
To continue the dream theme, we used the ‘222’ in the bar’s Brooklyn address to create a secondary symbol reminiscent of the ‘zzz’ used to illustrate sleep.
Working with photographer McGuire McManus, we developed a photography style reminiscent of Impressionism, a key art movement of the Belle Époque era. Movement and film photography are used to create a photographic take on the visible brushstrokes of the impressionist era, while also creating a ethereal, dream-like effect.
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To bring a surreal quality to the online experience, users are asked to ‘drift up’ rather than scroll down.
Referencing dream ‘symbology’, a series of illustrations animate from state to state and are used across the bar’s collateral.
The Bar’s inaugural cocktail menu pulls from the Impressionist movement, featuring cocktails inspired by ten paintings. To bring the menu to life we pulled from the Symbolist and Vers Libre (‘free verse’) poetry styles of the Belle Epoque era, drawing particularly from the work of Stéphane Mallarmé.
Vers Libre was chosen for its loose, conversational style. Each of the paintings was paired with a poem written from the point of view of someone who has just woken from a vivid dream in the ‘world’ of the artwork.
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