Mingle Branding Identity
Welcome to Mingle Cocktail Bar, the new Cocktail bar where good vibes flow as freely as our cocktails! At Mingle, we believe that every sip tells a story, and every night is an adventure waiting to unfold. From playful twists on classics to innovative creations, each drink has its own flair and personality. Whether you’re catching up with friends or making new ones, we invite you to kick back, relax, and mingle your night away!
This project was a competition entry for the International Design Awards, an annual design competition that recognises and celebrates multiple disciplines of design. The competition highlights the aspects of innovation, functionally, durability, and emotional connection to include in the design entries. The competition did not outline a theme or challenge to design for, so I set myself a design brief, to design a brand identity and brand toolkit for a fictional cocktail bar called Mingle. The cocktail bar is casual, fun, trendy and stylish.
Visual Branding Style Guidelines Brand Positioning Print
Mingle Cocktail Bar is the new, fun and exciting bar on the market, ensuring a good time and fun cocktails for everyone. Mingle is all about connections, bringing together old, present and new friends to create a playful, light-hearted environment.
The word ‘Mingle’ originates from mid- 15th century meaning “to mix, blend, bring something and something else, form a combination together” and in middle English “to mix”. That is the inspiration for the Mingle Cocktail bar, to combine, blend and bring people together to enjoy, celebrate, and experience a joyful, fun and memorable (or not so memorable, if you know what I mean) time. After the previous couple of years we have all experienced, now is the time to live again, go out and experience what we missed out on, time to connect, bring people together, mix and mingle into the night. Mingle Cocktail Bar is all about connections and a good time. At Mingle we preach the importance of coming together to enjoy life, the good, the bad, the ugly and mingle those stories all night long.
Connections are fundamental in humans’ well-being and significant in how we move through our lives. Mingle Cocktail Bar promotes the importance of mingling and connecting to improve well-being and provides the space, environment and drinks, if needed, to ensure those integral connections occur. Mingle Cocktail Bar is designed to communicate a friendly welcoming environment, to facilitate conversations, spark friendships and bring people together. Mingle Cocktail Bar’s focus is about being together, so come to Mingle Cocktail Bar, grab a glass and let the mingling begin!
Mingle Cocktail Bar branding uses the aspects highlighted by the international design awards incorporating a range of fun, funky and diverse elements to meet the design brief. This project was complex and different from pervious projects I had completed, as it was more a personal project and challenge for myself to complete. The branding features a custom typeface that is bold and funky and works, hand in hand with the illustrated icons to communicate the brands welcoming and connected environment. The use of dark and edited photography expresses the trendy and stylish feeling while also including the brands positioning of relationships and connection. Mingle Cocktail Bar branding and identity speaks the feelings of stylish, trendy and fun while successfully incorporating the international design awards criteria.
The impact of this project was the lesson in time management and being my own art director. Throughout the process there were many decisions that I would often rely on the client for, but this project was not for a client and therefore I was responsible for the design direction and decisions. This project taught me the benefits of time management, having a mentor or peer to check in with and the confidence to believe in my work.