Project Overview
Havana Rouge is a restaurant inspired by the tropical retro aesthetics of 1950s–60s Cuba, reinterpreted with a contemporary, slightly weathered look that evokes nostalgia while appealing to a younger audience. Havana Rouge Posters focuses on the restaurant's overall brand communication. The project included posters and promotional materials inspired by the nostalgic tropical aesthetic of 1950s–60s Cuba, channeling the warmth, color, and retro rhythm of the era while remaining relevant to a contemporary audience. My role extended beyond graphic design to include brand strategy and creative direction, defining the communication approach and establishing a visual language that carried consistently across every brand touchpoint.
Creative Challenge
The restaurant needed to stand out in a competitive dining landscape while communicating a very specific cultural moment — the glamour, warmth, and tropical rhythm of mid-century Cuba — without falling into pastiche or appearing dated. The challenge was to make nostalgia feel fresh: to create promotional materials that would resonate with younger audiences who had no direct memory of the era while still feeling authentic to those who valued the cultural reference.
Strategy
We treated the poster system as the flagship expression of the brand's visual language. Rather than isolating each piece, we built a modular promotional toolkit rooted in the same components: expressive typography, warm tropical palettes, and compositional rhythms drawn from 1950s Cuban advertising. This allowed every poster, flyer, and promotional piece to function both independently and as part of a larger, cohesive campaign.
Design Solution
The identity system was consistently applied to all brand assets, creating a cohesive experience while preserving the restaurant's distinctive personality. Posters and promotional materials were built on a shared foundation of bold typography, vibrant color blocking, and nostalgic graphic elements that referenced Cuban advertising heritage. Each piece balanced retro charm with contemporary execution, ensuring the brand felt curated rather than themed.
Results & Impact
The result is a cohesive promotional system that celebrates Cuban cultural heritage through bold visual storytelling and expressive typography. The materials helped establish Havana Rouge as a distinctive destination, creating immediate visual recognition across street-level advertising, social media, and in-venue displays.
Tools Used
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe InDesign
