Building a wholly new concept of New Zealand Hospitality

There is nothing better to bring the tone of a drinking establishment down than piss-pant old drunks, slotties a TAB and cheap jug nites for first year varsity students. The Southern Cross was indeed a place of great repute, even the scene of a gang-land shooting. All in all a great Kiwi boozer.

Gary Clarke had had enough of running a shady joint and wanted to recapture some of the Courtenay Place crowd (the more coined drinkers from across town). To do that he was going to have to spruce the place up a bit (to the tune of a couple of mill).

He wanted to be able re-welcome families, to be able to serve great honest kiwi fare and become a better heart in the community. The other thing he wanted to do was become a destination and with the best garden bar in town he already had a great starting point. He engaged John Mills architects (known for their pacific rim style) and DNA to help reinvent an old Wellington favourite. We had to seek out the NEW New Zealand local. The identity was designed to be flexible and reflect the can do attitude of using what’s available at the time.

The type is designed to look current but have yesteryear cues. The central theme is the logo, which when broken down is multi-layered and just feels like ‘Us’. The negative detail is the constellation, the inner positive detail is a frangipani, something from the Pacific, which is a far better representation of who we now are as Kiwis - ‘We come from all over…’ All this is contained in a curvaceous edged rectilinear shell.

So what has happened? Well a new crowd’s in and staying. The old crowd have shuffled off down the road. Takings and head counts have gone up beyond projections and remaining heartily steady.

Gary is in a much happier space. A Best Award swung my way for the effort as well.