Nearly Ninth, located inside the Arlo Midtown hotel – Italian-inspired fare, coffee, and craft cocktails across a bar, lounge, and rooftop. As Creative Direction lead on the visual identity, the brief was to root the brand in the actual block it sits on: West 38th near Ninth Avenue, an area thick with old pizzeria signage and black-and-white autographed headshots on diner walls.

That local texture became the system. Collages paired classic celebrity photography with ephemera pulled from vintage local advertisements, capturing the neighborhood’s eclecticism rather than inventing a generic vintage aesthetic. The palette took a twist on traditional pizzeria colors, and a modern sans-serif logo kept the whole thing from reading dated.

The result carried through stationery, swag, social, and print collateral like the drink menu and dinner cards – recognizable enough for hotel guests and local regulars to remember and return to.