KSG Food Hall

Microsoft HQ Dublin

Exhibit Design

Client: KSG

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Martin O'Brien, Project Management

Rosanne Lancaster, Art Direction & Management

Designing and conceptualising the branding and signage for KSG's Food Hall in Microsoft's new Dublin HQ was equal parts challenging and satisfying. Microsoft's food hall featured some of KSG's top quality food offers such as Cortado's quality coffee, Pulse, Street Kitchen and Chef's Table. I had previously developed and implemented some of these brand designs for KSG in other spaces and retail units. 

 

A key challenge of the project was taking these multi-faceted brands, stripping them back to their core typographic and graphic elements and re-producing them so that they would have a consistency across the space. Other food brands were created specifically for the Microsoft food hall such as Knead, an in-house bakery, Grab + Go, featuring ready-made sandwiches and salads for people on the go, Forage & Gather, offering delicious health food options and the Italian Quarter, creating authentic Italian cuisine.

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The interior of the food hall space was designed to have a contemporary industrial feel with exposed ceilings and unrefined material finishes such as concrete and repurposed wood. The signage needed to be contemporary, work with the interior finishes and also stand out. I proposed 3D face-lit LED lettering suspended with black powder-coated framework. Italian Quarter and the large ampersand for Forage & Gather consist of neon lighting in a stainless-steel frame. Street Kitchen and Pulse feature of halo-lit discs with die-cut logos. Knead is distinctive in that the 3D metal lettering is attached to the underside of the fascia above the counter, and spot-lit. The Knead bakery also features a unique call-to-action created from 3D wooden lettering and applied to the wall.