Havana is a specialty cocktail lounge and night club which has become a fixture of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood nightlife: "A Palace for Drinking" and a place "Where Leisure is Paramount." The cocktails and mixers are all hand made and the service is attentive and gracious. During happy hour, the large windows let in the warm afternoon light and the palm trees gently sway in the breeze of the fans. Vintage lighting fixtures and rich colors create a relaxed atmosphere and the well-worn hardwood floors and marble bar give the room a timeless feel. Every detail was meticulously considered and the Havana brand and spirit is carried through every aspect of the bar.

    51 Eggs worked closely with the owner in developing the concept of the bar during its construction, including consulting about materials and interior decorating choices. 51 Eggs was instrumental in determining how the brand would carry through the customer’s experience and into the physical space. We provided ongoing consultation regarding the spirit of the bar and its mission. Throughout this process, we were developing Havana’s character and adding more layers to the brand experience.

    Aesthetically rooted in the tradition of luxury hotels and colonial-era Havana architecture, the Havana brand was developed to capture not only the rich textures and colors that Cuba is famous for, but also to echo the decay of its opulence since Cuba's revolution. The brand employs a continental style illustrating various aesthetic traditions of Cuba: travel, luxury, music, cigars, boxing, and bright colors & patterns. The typography is rooted in a classical tradition but uses touches of art deco and early modernism to capture the shift from the old world to the new. Typographic ornaments, decadent patterns, and engraved illustrations all work together to communicate the remnants of a different time.

    Coasters, postcard souvenirs, comment cards, reservation signs, menus, interior signage, and advertising were all designed to build on the bar's story. We also built Havana's website to continue that story online. We continue to work together as the bar and the brand evolve, remaining mindful of the bar's original mission of creating an elegant and sophisticated atmosphere—and above all, to make Havana a place "Where Leisure is Paramount."

    Because the menus are the customer's most direct interaction with the brand, they needed to have a special presence. We saw this as an opportunity to set the bar apart by creating a menu that was unique and memorable. We designed pieces that tied in all of the brand's references to the history of Cuba and that represented the hand-crafted quality of the cocktails and the bar's general attention to detail.

    Vintage photos of Cuban boxers were unearthed and used as the central element for the design. The images of the boxers and patterns on the menus were all screen printed directly onto quarter-inch thick plywood in several different color combinations. This allowed for us to mix and match boxers and colors into different pairs, making each menu unique. After the printing, all of the individual panels were all cut to size from the master sheet and sanded and sealed for waterproofing. Next, a custom pocket system was placed under a thick green canvas used to bind the two panels together, and to hold the replaceable menu inserts in place.

    The end result was a beautiful set of durable and unique menu books that, when placed standing upon the tables and across the bar, gave the room a burst of color and a lively feel as dozens of boxers stood perched and ready for their next bout. They proved to be a huge success and were actually so popular that many of them were stolen and a second batch had to be fabricated.

   Hotel / Motel is a weekly dance night hosted by Havana with a twist: there's an exclusive guest list, with a special pass that gets those guests past the line and in the door along with drink tickets for them and their guests. We needed to make something that the chosen few would keep as their permanent pass for the night, could be easily identified (to make life easier for the doormen), and that could be tracked for keeping tabs on the drink tickets. The solution: custom-made hotel keychains. The bright green keychains were gold embossed and individually numbered, so the guests could "check in" to receive their drink tickets at the door. The keychains became a hot commodity as a symbol for those “in the know,” and Hotel / Motel went on to be one of the most popular and exclusive dance nights in Seattle.