SPRING • SUMMER '26
QUEENS
NEW YORK
✦ MULTIDISCIPLINARY VISUAL DESIGNER ✦
❃ CURRENTLY SEEKING FREELANCE WORK ❃
fw•23
branding
Nov 2023
Gold Lion Community Cafe
Identity and branding for a South Asian cafe in Richmond, VA, serving treats and warm hospitality.
Gold Lion Community Cafe, nestled in the heart of Richmond, Virginia, is more than just a cafe and bar serving Indian-inspired fare. It is a place where everyone is welcome and the community can come together. Owners Matt and Nafis have a clear vision for their cafe's branding, which reflects this welcoming and inclusive spirit, blending conventional Indian aesthetics with a contemporary cafe experience.
When Matt and Nafis approached me with the branding request, the task was straightforward: to blend the culture of a community cafe with Indian hospitality. With a name set and a visual direction from the owners, we journeyed from the lion iconography to creating the entire brand book. This comprehensive branding process allowed us to draw inspiration from our cherished South Asian heritage, resulting in a unique and meaningful brand identity for Gold Lion Community Cafe.
The genesis of the visual system revolves around the lion. In many cultures, the lion represents protection within strength and unity. Drawing from those attributes, the cafe strives to harbor a safe space where anyone can feel open. The Indian tradition of hospitality is infused and embraced. The core idea of the cafe's visual system is to combine the lion iconography with branding that's bespoke to the cafe's mission. The Gold Lion, the cafe's namesake symbol, was carefully ideated, sketched, and digitized after numerous iterations to ensure the right proportions and expression. The lion's digital design allows it to be scaled for any marketing environment, serving as a visual anchor for the brand. Various logo lockups and frame styles were planned and prescribed, ensuring the lion's versatility and consistency across all branding elements.
The choice of Tiller Pro from Fort Foundry as the primary typeface was deliberate, as its variable axes allow for seamless adaptation to most treatments, ensuring versatility in the branding. Teko, an open-source typeface from Google, was chosen to serve as a decorative display typeface for the supplementary Devanagari script, adding a touch of cultural relevance to the branding.
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The brand draws from essential warm tones of the South Asian culture. The primary hues are used throughout the brand for most of its correspondence. Accent colors were studied and applied—to be used sparingly—for various decorative needs.
• Information
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Dev A. Bhavsar, a multidisciplinary graphic designer, firmly believes in the harmonious balance between functionality and aesthetics in design.
His work, culminating in his education, design practice, and innate creative drive, reflects this belief. Born in Mumbai, raised in Nashville, and based in New York, he draws from his unconventional cultural upbringing and third-culture identity to add a flare to his designs.
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His chief interests lie in identity and branding—majorly in understanding the story a brand wants to convey through its visual manifestation.
He strives to strike this goal with design fundamentals, such as logo design, attention to typography, composition, and color theory. Dev studied experiential design in college, which has been integral to his design process.
Akin to UX/UI design practices, this course environment instilled in him the scaffolding to approach necessary design projects with a scientific approach—especially projects whose needs are chiefly entrenched in human interaction metrics.
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Dev's proficiency in major design software is a testament to his technical skills. He is adept at using any tool to bring his ideas to life.
While that dictates the function behind his design, the process of discovering style is holistic, for which he attempts to understand the context of every brand or project and tends to traverse it with an artistic endeavor.
• Experience
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FULL-TIME
OCT 2023 – CURRENT
GRAPHIC DESIGNER, JR.
Barcelona Restaurant Group
✰ Architect and maintain digital-to-print menus and marketing asset libraries that streamline workflows for both marketing initiatives and day-to-day restaurant operations
✰ Develop user-friendly design assets accessible to non-design team members, ensuring operational efficiency across all departments
✰ Assist with end-to-end project logistics, from vendor management to on-time delivery of jobs involving printed and/or physical materials
✰ Collaborate with brand, event, and beverage managers to create high-impact assets for email campaigns, special events, and new restaurant openings
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FULL-TIME
OCT 2022 – AUG 2023
Shop Designer
BUNTIN
✰ Designed and developed visually stunning graphics for both digital and static platforms, including social media and print materials.
✰ Specialized in motion graphics to produce engaging content for social media. With a strong understanding of design principles, delivered compelling materials that effectively communicated clients' brand identities.
✰ Worked closely with project managers, brand managers, and strategists to meet expectations and enhance brand awareness. Committed to producing effective designs, aimed to deliver exceptional solutions that propelled clients' brands forward.
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FREELANCE
May 2022 – Oct 2022
Freelance Designer
Kirkland's Home
✰ Crafted fresh email layouts for daily campaigns and promotions using Adobe Illustrator while adhering to brand guidelines.
✰ Collaborated closely with mid to senior-level peers, gathering feedback and incorporating it into designs to produce cohesive and impactful visuals that effectively conveyed the client's message.
✰ Leveraged design principles and team insights, ensuring that all email layouts were visually striking and successfully reflected the client's brand identity.
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