Mister Bianco
Brand Identity & Creative Direction
After thirteen years on High Street in Kew, Mister Bianco relocated to a two-storey corner site on Cotham Road – expanding into a three-part venue comprising a restaurant, cocktail bar, and upstairs event space. The move marked a new era, requiring a refreshed identity capable of honouring its Sicilian heritage while elevating its presence through spatial, digital and visual expression. As Creative Director, I led concept development, identity design, messaging, and space across the full reimagining of the brand.
Art Direction
Brand Identity
Brand Systems
Creative Direction
Digital
Graphic Design
Illustration
Interiors
Materials Selection
Menu Design
Naming
Signage & Wayfinding
Social Media
Strategy
Typography Design
Uniforming
Website Design & UI
ADDITIONAL PROJECT CREDITS
Mills Gorman Architects (Interiors)
Grafico (Signage)
MenuCorp (Menu Covers)
Kristoffer Paulsen, Silvia Zanon, Jessie Evans (Digital Photography)
Dynamite Digital (Web Development)
Gary Bigeni (Uniforms)
Sunday Lunch (PR)
The challenge was to develop a unified brand system that honoured Mister Bianco’s Sicilian heritage to scale across architecture, interiors, print, and digital in response to the new site’s visibility and scale.
The new identity was conceived through the geographical and architectural context of the new site. Being positioned at a key road junction with constant flow from public transport, a conceptual approach was drawn from Italian rationalist architecture – particularly major rail stations such as Venezia Santa Lucia, Firenze Santa Maria Novella, and Roma Termini. These references shaped both the architectural brief delivered to Mills Gorman Architects and the visual language of the brand, grounding the project in heritage, movement, gathering, and space.
Differentiating the three spaces while maintaining coherence, the underlying narrative of Dante’s Divine Comedy was adopted as structure. Inferno informed the main restaurant, anchoring it in warmth, fire and Sicilian tradition. Purgatorio shaped Bianchetto as a moody, transitional cocktail bar, while Paradiso guided Sala as a lighter, more refined event space. Each environment was supported by its own emblem, developed through artisan pantograph-inspired mark making.
Typography combined a custom municipal-style typeface (MB Block) with DJR Forma Medium contrasted by GT Alpina Thin, allowing the identity to move between architectural strength and delicate expression. Colour palettes were derived from classical artworks associated with each part of Dante’s poem, extending across menus, environmental graphics, uniforms, campaigns and photography direction. Menus and printed matter were conceived as literary objects – leather-bound with antique brass hardware and selected excerpts from The Divine Comedy reinforcing narrative within the dining experience.
The digital presence was reimagined through a redesigned Mister Bianco website and a dedicated platform for Bianchetto, translating the brand’s new spatial and tonal qualities into a more image-led digital space.
The rebrand positions Mister Bianco as a richly layered hospitality destination defined by its architecture, narrative, and cultural richness of its Chef Owner. The identity system successfully unifies three distinct venues through a shared conceptual foundation, while allowing each space to express its own personality, atmosphere and role within the wider experience.
Through space, form, materiality and storytelling, the project marks a considered next chapter for Mister Bianco, strengthening its presence within Melbourne’s dining landscape.