The Ask + Brief

Micho’z was still an idea when I was brought in at the beginning stages. The location had history—most recently home to another Middle Eastern–style restaurant that lasted only a year, lacking authenticity and failing to connect with the neighborhood.

Owner Micho, born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, had only lived in the US for about a year when he took the risk of opening in the same space. With a lifelong culinary background and passion for creating an authentic Lebanese dining experience, he set out to do what the previous restaurant could not—bring genuine, heartfelt Lebanese cuisine to Hillcrest, crafted exactly as if you were eating in Lebanon.

My role was to develop a complete identity system and brand presence from the ground up, covering the logo, signage, menus (in-house and to-go), business cards, website, social media presence, and marketing collateral. I also consulted on the interior aesthetic to ensure the brand extended into the physical space.

Hillcrest is saturated with dining options, and the previous restaurant’s failure in the same spot loomed large. The challenge was twofold:

Differentiate Micho’z from direct competitors in the Middle Eastern category.
 

Distance the brand from the unsuccessful history of the location.
 

At a time when many restaurants in the area were chasing modern, upscale aesthetics, I took the opposite approach. The goal was to make Micho’z feel like an old, family-owned institution that had been a neighborhood fixture for decades.

The experience needed to start the moment someone approached the patio—before they even sat down. Every detail had to feel as warm, authentic, and welcoming as walking into a restaurant in Beirut.

I researched established, decades-old restaurants across Lebanon, studying their visual cues: hand-painted menu boards, brick walls, weathered wood shelving, vintage photography, and warm color palettes. The brand identity needed to blend those cues with a scalable, professional system adaptable to print, digital, and environmental applications.

Typography choices referenced classic restaurant signage, paired with colors rooted in Lebanese culture (deep greens, bold reds). The cedar tree—iconic in Lebanese heritage—was embedded within the “O” of the wordmark to give the logo an immediate, ownable connection to its roots.