Oddfellows

Oddfellows is an open house members’ club, bar, restaurant and hotel. Everything is designed to make the usual unusual; the ordinary extraordinary. Nothing matches, but everything makes complete sense.

Through our idea: ‘welcomingly odd’, we created a single way to control the amount of oddness injected into the Oddfellows brand.

The logotype uses two typefaces designed by British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter, printmaker and, some might say, odd-bod: Eric Gill. Gill Sans and Perpetua have been re-cut to balance their weights and, through sleight of hand, typeface and colour, the word Oddfellows still reads even though the letters are a little jumbled.

 

Window display

 

Three suitably odd fellows

Historical oil paintings were doctored to create some suitably odd fellows, using them in guerilla marketing and a temporary window display, prior to the launch of the venue.

 

Cock Tales menu & accompanying story

The printed material adopts a playful use of anagrams creating suitably odd phrases. The Cock Tales cocktail book takes the verbal identity to a new level, telling the story of ‘the cock and the folded owls’ (folded owls being an anagram of oddfellows).

 

Website

The website adopted an eclectic mix of styles to mirror the venue itself, whilst the copy on the website is informative yet magical, not to mention a little odd.

 

Membership collateral

The Oddfellows Members’ lounge is on the second floor of the building. By day, a business hub, by night, a chilled out retreat, by weekend, an indulgent playground for grownups. The lounge has a strong and confident vibe, softened by luxury, brought down to earth with good honest bar food, sharpened by awesome contemporary details. The beautiful yellow mirrored bar provided our influence for the distinctive identity scheme.

We retained the playful use of anagrams, creating a look that was deliberately out of sync with the main brand identity, but some how felt the same.

 

Membership invitation

 

Impact

Faced with competitive ventures opening within the same month, Oddfellows more than held their own, attracting an instantly loyal following – selling all their membership subscriptions (via the website we designed) within weeks of the opening.