Restaurant branding, visual identity & web design for Mat & Malt — Restaurant & Sports Bar in Halmstad
Customer
Food & Drink
_______________________
Sweden
Year
2025
Background
Mat & Malt is a restaurant and sports bar at Hamngatan 27 in Halmstad. A place where good food and cold beer meet shared sports enjoyment — a spot for everyday guests and evening companionship at the same time.
The task was not only about creating a logo for a restaurant. It was about giving a completely new place in Halmstad a complete graphic profile and visual identity — a feeling that the visitor should recognize already out on the street and remember long after they have left the table.
Challenge
Restaurants and pubs are one of the most challenging categories to design brand identity for. Everyone wants to feel welcoming, everyone wants a warm feeling — and the result is that most look alike. Generic restaurant branding is forgotten as quickly as it is created.
Food & Malt needed a graphic profile that stood out in Halmstad — a brand with real personality, something that the guests actually wanted to wear on a t-shirt and put up as a sign on the wall. It's a completely different level of ambition than "a logo that looks okay on the menu."
Strategy
Before we opened a single design program, we asked the question that really determines all brand design: how many contexts will this brand live in?
A restaurant and sports bar is not a place — it is a facade sign, a glass on the bar counter, a shirt on the staff, a cap on a regular, and a profile picture on Instagram. Each context requires its own scaling adjustment of the visual identity. This led us to build a complete logo system with a slider logic: from Full Crest to pure Glyph — the same character, five expressions, one and the same brand.
5
5
Logo variants in a cohesive system
Logo variants in a cohesive system
1
1
Illustrated mascot created from scratch
Illustrated mascot created from scratch
12
12
Unique design deliveries
Unique design deliveries
Visual system
The system moves along an axis from complexity to purity. At one end is Full Crest — the circular badge with the eagle, MAT•MALT in arcade text, and ESTD 2025. It is the brand's most narrative form, created for facade signs, menus, and branded products where there is space to communicate fully.
In the middle is the MoM variant — the two massive M's with the mascot built into the negative space. Graphic, bold, and instantly recognizable. Perfect for signage, t-shirts, and digital surfaces.
At the other end is the pure Glyphe — MoM reduced to its most distilled form. Nothing told, everything recognized. For contexts where the brand is already established and the form is sufficient.
The color palette is drawn directly from the Swedish autumn dining room — deep wine red (#993333), warm Cream Beige (#E9E1D4), Mocha Brown, and Burnt Terracotta. Typography in Recoleta Bold for headings and Helvetica Neue for body text and informational levels. Warm, earthy, and with a natural connection to food and drink without being clichéd.
Result
This is a brand that lives outside the design program. Guests wear it, photograph it, and share it. The façade sign at Hamngatan 27 stops people in their tracks. The beer glass with the engraved mascot is a little piece of art in itself.
Mat & Malt not only received a logo and a graphic profile — they got a visual identity with real personality, built to last for years and grow with the business. This is the best evidence that brand design actually works — when people want to wear your brand without being asked.
Deliveries
Brand strategy & positioning · Logo system with 5 variants (Full Crest → Glyph) · Illustrated eagle mascot · Color palette & typography guidelines · Facade sign · T-shirts & cap · Engraved beer glass · Coffee cup holder · Paper bags · Menu · Web design · Brand guide
Latest projects
Restaurant branding, visual identity & web design for Mat & Malt — Restaurant & Sports Bar in Halmstad
Customer
Food & Drink
_______________________
Sweden
Year
2025
Background
Mat & Malt is a restaurant and sports bar at Hamngatan 27 in Halmstad. A place where good food and cold beer meet shared sports enjoyment — a spot for everyday guests and evening companionship at the same time.
The task was not only about creating a logo for a restaurant. It was about giving a completely new place in Halmstad a complete graphic profile and visual identity — a feeling that the visitor should recognize already out on the street and remember long after they have left the table.
Challenge
Restaurants and pubs are one of the most challenging categories to design brand identity for. Everyone wants to feel welcoming, everyone wants a warm feeling — and the result is that most look alike. Generic restaurant branding is forgotten as quickly as it is created.
Food & Malt needed a graphic profile that stood out in Halmstad — a brand with real personality, something that the guests actually wanted to wear on a t-shirt and put up as a sign on the wall. It's a completely different level of ambition than "a logo that looks okay on the menu."
Strategy
Before we opened a single design program, we asked the question that really determines all brand design: how many contexts will this brand live in?
A restaurant and sports bar is not a place — it is a facade sign, a glass on the bar counter, a shirt on the staff, a cap on a regular, and a profile picture on Instagram. Each context requires its own scaling adjustment of the visual identity. This led us to build a complete logo system with a slider logic: from Full Crest to pure Glyph — the same character, five expressions, one and the same brand.
5
5
Logo variants in a cohesive system
Logo variants in a cohesive system
1
1
Illustrated mascot created from scratch
Illustrated mascot created from scratch
12
12
Unique design deliveries
Unique design deliveries
Visual system
The system moves along an axis from complexity to purity. At one end is Full Crest — the circular badge with the eagle, MAT•MALT in arcade text, and ESTD 2025. It is the brand's most narrative form, created for facade signs, menus, and branded products where there is space to communicate fully.
In the middle is the MoM variant — the two massive M's with the mascot built into the negative space. Graphic, bold, and instantly recognizable. Perfect for signage, t-shirts, and digital surfaces.
At the other end is the pure Glyphe — MoM reduced to its most distilled form. Nothing told, everything recognized. For contexts where the brand is already established and the form is sufficient.
The color palette is drawn directly from the Swedish autumn dining room — deep wine red (#993333), warm Cream Beige (#E9E1D4), Mocha Brown, and Burnt Terracotta. Typography in Recoleta Bold for headings and Helvetica Neue for body text and informational levels. Warm, earthy, and with a natural connection to food and drink without being clichéd.
Result
This is a brand that lives outside the design program. Guests wear it, photograph it, and share it. The façade sign at Hamngatan 27 stops people in their tracks. The beer glass with the engraved mascot is a little piece of art in itself.
Mat & Malt not only received a logo and a graphic profile — they got a visual identity with real personality, built to last for years and grow with the business. This is the best evidence that brand design actually works — when people want to wear your brand without being asked.
Deliveries
Brand strategy & positioning · Logo system with 5 variants (Full Crest → Glyph) · Illustrated eagle mascot · Color palette & typography guidelines · Facade sign · T-shirts & cap · Engraved beer glass · Coffee cup holder · Paper bags · Menu · Web design · Brand guide
Latest projects