WIENERS UND BALLS
Rheinhaus
Brand Identity & Signage
Rheinhaus is Seattle’s first and only combination bocce ball venue + Bavarian-style beer hall. Turnstyle’s design for the identity system involves a widely varied and flexible set of logos and visual elements that put a fresh and playful spin on historic European design tropes by remixing traditional visual references with just the right amount of camp. The result is a widely varied and versatile set of graphic elements that can be mixed and matched as they're applied to everything from signage to beer steins to faux-lederhosen t-shirts. We like to think that some part of the significant buzz around the restaurant’s opening (hundreds arrived within the first hour) can be attributed to its intriguing visual identity.
Bavarian, but not too Bavarian
The founders of Rheinhaus wanted the venue to capture the same joyful spirit as famous beer halls like Munich's Hofbräuhaus, where patrons sit at long tables with enormous beers, and sing together. But they also knew they wanted it to be a uniquely American experience and didn't want to be judged on how faithfully they'd interpreted German traditions of cuisine, architecture and branding. And in any case, being located in a young, urban Seattle neighborhood, a purely traditional beer hall would not have been likely to succeed.
Given these circumstances, our approach to the brand was to borrow unabashedly from Bavarian design themes when it served our purposes, but then remix them into something altogether new—a contemporary and quirky identity that references European sporting tropes without taking itself too seriously.
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