Award-winning Design studio Run For The Hills have been working with Kindred for a few years now, revamping the interior design, and this year the studio’s branding team were invited to complete the design circle and refresh the club’s Brand. Kindred is a West London-based Open House hospitality venue set within a gorgeous grade II listed mansion called Bradmore House. They are passionate about building community and real human connections; inspired by the openness, warmth, and togetherness created by gathering around a campfire.

For the rebranding project, it was important to keep the essence of what makes Kindred great – the playful but professional tone of voice, the sense of togetherness and, of course, the campfire concept. But much as Run For The Hills’ interiors team have added extra layers of styling to the venue, injecting yet more heart and soul to the space, the brand identity also needed a similarly creative evolution.

The design team started by re-working Kindred’s logotype and campfire logomark. Opting for a slightly more modern serif for the logotype, and lots of honing, smoothing and simplifying for the mark. Then they created a darker and richer colour palette, taking cues from the refreshed interior styling. Deep burgundy red from our design of the new Salon Bar on the top floor of Kindred, a luxurious blue from the new banquette seating, and a beautifully soft green taken from the library book shelves. An orange accent colour finishes the brand palette, just as pops of orange can be seen in the interior scheme in some armchairs and accessories.

Run For The Hills then set to work developing Kindred a playful new illustration style. Creating unique monochrome illustrations to help bring to life all the things that make Kindred so special. A grand piano, branded drum kit and microphone on a looping cord to represent Kindred’s dynamic roster of live music events. Notebooks, coffee cups and canines to represent the venue’s dog-friendly membership co-working spaces. And a rich collection of food and drink inspired illustrations showcasing Kindred’s fantastic F&B offering, for use across menus and marketing materials.

After thoughtfully pairing perfect typefaces and adding extra decorative touches, the studio started to work up the full suite of menus. The pièce de resistance is a stunning 40 page drinks book. The beautiful tome, with tan-orange cover featuring an understated campfire emboss, is printed on subtly textured Fedrigoni paper with matching orange stitching. It really is a piece of storytelling in its own right, with a narrative talking about the provenance of everything Kindred does, championing Kindred’s independent London suppliers – all artisans and family businesses. The tone of voice is whimsically descriptive and full of the new illustrations which take the reader on a journey through the makers who pour their passion into their very special products.

Run For The Hills came up with the idea of creating a ‘cocktail toolkit’ to illustrate all of Kindred’s distinct cocktails. A set of components including different glass types – from lowball and highball, to flutes and shots – with lots of illustrated decorative embellishments like ice and fruit, all created individually, meaning that it’ll be easy to create new cocktails for future updates to the book using the ready-made tool kit components as the bedrock.

The new branding has now been rolled gracefully over all other touchpoints, across social media and in venue items like event posters (for Kindred’s busy live programme of music/comedy/networking/socials), loyalty cards and day passes, creating a seamless experience for Kindred’s community to thrive in a space where the brand and interior are harmoniously balanced.