BONA FIDE is a restaurant and bar concept developed from the ground up, encompassing naming, visual identity, and brand strategy. Designed to live both digitally and physically, the brand pairs a bold, design-forward aesthetic with a warm, community-driven experience, brought to life through a series of pop-ups, collaborations, and events.

I originated the brand from inception, leading naming, visual identity, and overall creative direction. This included defining the logo, typography, color palette, and visual language to establish a distinct and recognizable identity system. I also developed the brand’s tone, narrative, and cultural positioning to ensure consistency across how it was expressed and experienced.From there, I directed all digital touchpoints to translate the brand into a cohesive online presence, using content to communicate both aesthetic and experiential intent. The brand was then extended into physical environments through pop-up experiences hosted within partner spaces, ensuring a consistent expression of the identity across both digital and real-world contexts.

The brand’s early audience and demand were built entirely through a digital-first strategy, growing the Instagram presence from 0 to 2,000 followers in 90 days and generating 100,000+ views per month in the last 60 days. This growth was driven through intentional content direction and visual consistency, establishing a cohesive digital identity that made the brand recognizable before it had a permanent physical space. Content was used not only to present visuals, but to communicate the feeling, tone, and experiential quality of the brand, translating its identity into a compelling narrative that resonated with early audiences and built tangible buy-in prior to launch.

The pop-up series was designed as an extension of the brand’s visual and cultural intent, using specific references such as vintage Tour de France aesthetics alongside geometric form systems to reflect the brand’s Italian culinary influence. Each event was conceived with a deliberate design language that carried through everything from promotional materials to environmental touchpoints, ensuring consistency between digital expression and physical presence. The strategy also integrated targeted posting cadence and content direction to build anticipation between events, alongside partnerships with local businesses to expand reach and credibility within each market. All ticketed events sold out, signaling strong alignment between the visual system, audience perception, and early demand for the concept.

BONA FIDE demonstrates how a brand can be intentionally constructed from visual identity through to cultural demand before a permanent physical space exists. The project highlights a design-led approach to building recognition, translating aesthetic and narrative systems into both digital traction and real-world engagement. It reflects a practice grounded in shaping not just how a brand looks, but how it is understood, sought after, and experienced across contexts.

Madison Poe © 1993