Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Highlands Country Club + Tavern


In the picturesque hamlet of Garrison, New York, along the sweeping panorama of the Hudson River, lies the historic Highlands Country Club. Originally founded in 1898 as a clubhouse for local families, including those of William Osborn, Samuel Sloan, JP Morgan and Stuyvesant Fish, the HCC still thrives, especially for lovers of golf, tennis, or swimming, as well as those who visit the club's warm and inviting (and non-exclusive) TAVERN Restaurant. It is also a popular destination for weddings and society events.

As the HCC boasts quite a rich pedigree, we took a strong, but grounded and friendly approach to its re-branding. For the country club's logo (which required some updating and finessing) and for the restaurant, we developed a graphic language that would allow a distinction, but would tie them together thematically, and typographically (click images to view in detail).



For the Tavern branding, we took inspiration from the carved wooden signage of Colonial public houses. Printed items for Tavern include a business card, postcard, and menu, all letterpressed in brown ink on 100% cotton, natural white paperstock. To further aide in the nouveau-rustic look-and-feel of the branding suite, all the elements we created utilize a redrawn and revised version of Frank Atkinson's 1937 typeface, Half Classic Roman. We admired the inherent characteristics of the typeface, but made changes to the shape of some letterforms, and to the proportion and polish of the typeface in general.


Above are print advertisements we designed for Tavern, and its sister restaturant, Valley at The Garrison, which is another Hudson Valley golf club and luxury inn. These ads have been featured in culinary publications such as Edible Hudson Valley and The Valley Table.

For this project we also had the great fortune of working alongside web-gurus, Rodriguez-Valle on the development of the HCC site. We worked in tandem to unify and integrate the branding piece and the web (as can be seen in the interactive map that we illustrated). The result is distinguished, while maintaining the charm and happiness of the location.




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