Can You Redefine the Event and Culinary Experience?

L+B Design answers to services and retail challenge in branding Caruccio’s, a physical space aiming to reinvent culinary and event experiences in the Greater Seattle Aera.

Lisa Caruccio is a passionate chef and world traveler and her husband, a film buff. When they embarked into combining both their passions and turning them into something that could beneficiate the Seattle community, they reached out to Mercer Island-based Suzanne Zahr Architecture for construction and architecture and to L+B Design to define the brand and translate it into a physical experience.

After exploratory meetings helping define the goals, look and feel and overall experience, we went into design explorations, pursuing all directions. From that point of view, multiple approaches were developed; Pacific Northwest Trendy, Organic-Industrial, Feminine, or Upscale.

Upon adjustment and refinements inherent to the design process, it became important to express the story into the mark; Caruccio's is not a place but rather a philosophy, it is not a restaurant nor a bar or a rental venue. It is a space where you will want to come over and over to Learn, Mingle and Share with friends or fellow foodies or wine lovers, but it is also a place of conviviality, warmth with a true desire to do good for the community by teaching knowledge, giving access to world class learning or simply contributing to help local not for profit occasions. More than a culinary school, more than an event space, Caruccio’s aims to be downtown's smiling anchor to a tight community, A kitchen for the Island, with a global inspiration where themes and topics will change on a monthly basis, sharing one's passion for food, wine and the moving images with others.

L+B Design channeled this vision into a multi-level brand. It translates into a signature mark emblematic to its owners as well as a monogram representing combined symbols of the Caruccio’s offering and purpose. We also created the anchoring tagline “Learn, Mingle and Share.” and defined the identity guidelines to help identify and provide direction for further explorations. While the venue gets built, we are excited to see the brand come alive and see the audience interact with it, starting in a few weeks.