The "Sassafras" Logo Project (2)—The Decayed Opulence of an Old Southern Estate...Opening Friday in Hollywood

A few weeks ago I posted an article about my logo project for Sassafras, a saloon set to open in Hollywood—another brainchild of Bobby Green of 1933 Group. The timing for these kinds of openings is always a bit cattywampus, and we didn’t know exactly when the Grand Opening was gonna be. I can now tell y’all with certainty that it will be on Friday, September 14th.

I’ve been to this honkey-tonk, and I can honestly say that it’s everything you’d expect from a Southern plantation which has been moved brick by brick and transplanted to Vine Street in Hollywood.

You can start slowly, out on the “front porch”, a great place to relax with a Toasted Pecan Julep...

Photo by Alen Lin

…then I reckon you’ll want to sidle on over to the “living room” with your Southern Belle (or Beau Hunk) to enjoy some of Sassafras’ signature “Barrel Aged” cocktails —perhaps a “Between the Sheets”…

Photo by Alen Lin

…and then finally end up at the bar and take in the strains of a live band performing from the balcony...

Photo by Alen Lin

Voila...the mirror on the balcony (logo designed by yours truly, and painted in gold-leaf by sign artist/fine artist Daniel Winter [Instagram - winter_stone]), through the reflection of which can be seen the saloon’s decaying opulence. From here you will be serenaded “New Orleans” style. Well, hush my mouth and slap your pappy!

Now take a gander at what you can look forward to. (Menu Art Direction courtesy of Mr. James “Buster” Heimann, and the design talents of Ms. Cindy Vance of Think Modern Design.) Make mine an Apple Moonshine Crusta!

And Bobby Green's awesome little business card, also courtesy of Ms. Vance.

Looks good? Hope to see you there, y’all!

The "Sassafras" Logo Project—New Bar Set to Open in Hollywood

Bobby Green of 1933 Group has cornered the market for drinking establishments in Los Angeles with a string of bars including Atwater's Bigfoot Lodge, Highland Park's La Cuevita, Culver City's Oldfield's Liquor Room, and Silverlake's Thirsty Crow.

Now Bobby's about to carve the another notch in his belt of Los Angeles watering holes with the opening of the Deep South inspired "Sassafras" in Hollywood on Vine Street—which at 3000 square feet will be the group's flagship location.

Tasked with designing the Sassafras logo, I first met with Jim Heimann, who'd acted as AD for several of Bobby's other projects (and who's also an editor at Taschen America). Discussing the look that Bobby wanted, it became clear that we needed to move towards a turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th)—and decidedly decorative look,with a sort of organic/plant-like flavor . . . perhaps using decorative borders that felt like vines or roots, to try to get across the feeling of the root-inspired intoxicants that Sassafras will be featuring. Thinking I knew exactly what they wanted, I went through the following roughs, presenting the tighter one to both Bobby and Jim:

The design generally went over OK, except that Bobby wanted the design to become even more specific to the actual sassafras plant. We discussed various ways we could achieve that, and Bobby also provided me with images of roots and of the sassafras plant and flowers. He further explained that the bar will serve root-inspired intoxicants containing both sassafras (from which root beer is made) and sarsaparilla, in addition to barrel-aged cocktails.

So I went back to the drawing board and started over taking into consideration the reference and other comments from the meeting. I then developed the following layout—what I had in mind was to use the "Brothers" typeface (this font was designed by my friend John Downer) as the basis for the word (except for the cap "S"), so that if we needed to create a straighter, simpler "Sassafras", it wouldn't be that much of a problem.

Feeling confident of this direction, I presented it to both Bobby and Jim. With the exception of my needing to add a border back in, it went over well, and I proceeded to flesh the logo out in Illustrator. So here's where we ended up, both with and without borders:

Sassafras is located at 1233 Vine Street, next door to the historic Villa Elaine. During the 1940s this historic landmark apartment building was home to Man Ray, Orson Welles and Henry Miller (there is a lot of history in this town). Sassafras' opening will be towards the end of August—so watch this blog for update postings. Hope to see you all there!

Now you can see Part 2 of this post!