Francesca Maida

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United States
New York, NY
Francesca Maida

Creating bold designs, illustrations, and Squarespace sites for small businesses.

10/29/2022

Huge congratulations to my freelance client on their official launch today! 🐝

Go check them out at honeybeautynyc.com and support this NYC-based, Afro-Latina-owned natural haircare brand.

Branding system (minus logo), packaging design, and product mocks by me

12/30/2021

Hot pink ransom letter alphabet ✏️

10/29/2021

Happy Halloweekend from Conjure, the spookiest fictional cocktail bar on the block (I wish it was real!!!) 🍸🎃🪄

10/27/2021

A little floral and a little phantasmagorical 👻

09/17/2021

It’s Friday—thank god—and I’m Francesca, the designer behind this account. 🎨 Let me introduce myself…

The basics: I’m an Experience Designer at Digitas by day designing websites for big corporate clients, and by night, I’m a freelance brand designer creating identities for small businesses.

Fun fact: Most of my pre-office job gigs revolved around food and customer service.

🍭My very first job was running a candy shop when I was 14
🍕I waitressed at 2 pizzerias on summer breaks in HS and college
🍐I worked for a caterer on for many years before turning that business into my very first freelance client

09/08/2021

Conjure 🚪 (Part 7)

Don’t mind me…just trying to grab your attention while you walk down a fictional version of Perry Street!

This will be my last Conjure post for a while, so I hope you’ve enjoyed coming along for the ride and learning a bit about my process.

👇If you have any questions about the creation of Conjure, drop them below and I’ll do my best to answer!

09/07/2021

Conjure 💼 (Part 7)

A well-designed business card scratches a special kind of itch for us designers.

It’s one of the (physically) smaller pieces of branding in a kit, yet is such an awesome opportunity to flex your branding system.

Here, I chose to let the custom type word mark and bold color palette be the illustrative elements while the contact information is presented in a traditional, neat, and legible way.

09/03/2021

Conjure📱(Part 5)

Conjure’s feed— like any good feed—is highly-curated and gives you a taste of the bar’s inspiration and ambiance.

There are so many fantastic restaurants and bars in the that have god-awful Instagram feeds, and I don’t think they know what a disservice to their business it is.

You can serve the finest handmade cocktails in NYC, but if your social media presence doesn’t showcase that and entice me to get dressed, leave my apartment, and come try out said cocktails, then you’re losing business.

Social media is a marketing tool, and it takes the right combination of message and visuals to use it properly to gain new and repeat clients. Plus a beautiful feed is just so satisfying ☺️

09/02/2021

Conjure 🌙 (Part 4)

Okay, you caught me—I’m the person that steals cool coasters from bars if they’ve got good type or a cool image on them. The bartenders are literally going to throw them out after I leave, so why not take the unique souvenir home with me?

Drink coasters are tiny canvases that pack a punch—they’re a chance for you (as a designer) to play with your branding system and provide guests with a pocketable reminder of their experience, and an invitation to come back soon.

09/01/2021

Conjure 🥂 (Part 3)

If I go to another cocktail bar where drinks are $18 and I’m handed a boring white 8.5x11 page with black text I’m going to scream.

Give me style! ✨Give me elegance! ✨Give me leather-bound brilliance!

Make the experience feel custom and expensive. Everything we see or touch in a bar/restaurant should invite guests to return again soon.

So let’s start off their experience by handing them a beautiful and organized menu to select their craft cocktail and side of fries from 🍟

08/31/2021

Conjure (Part 2) 💻

The website for a cocktail bar is meant to invite users to traverse the gap between casual curiosity and genuine interest. 🍸 You’re there to figure out if you *actually* want to go there in person. (Spoiler alert: you do.)

We go to a bar’s website for many reasons—to absorb the aesthetic, see the level of fanciness, understand the price range, and drool over their curated food and drink offerings.

We go there to find out what the press have to say, and what goes into hosting an event at that bar. Of course, there’s more practical information like operating hours and location on the site too.

For Conjure’s website design, I paired one of the darkest moss colors in the palette with rich, smokey evening imagery to establish the moody ambiance of the bar. 📷 The images live inside architectural frames that reference Gothic church windows, allowing viewers a glimpse inside the bar.

Swipe to see more details!

08/30/2021

Introducing Conjure🍸🌙🔮 (Part 1)

Conjure is a fictitious cocktail bar located in the West Village of New York City. This brand blends references to witchcraft and gothic art into an elegant-yet-somewhat-sinister cocktail experience.

My biggest challenge was preventing Conjure from looking like a cheap Halloween-themed bar. We want glossy and expensive and spooky, people! I was able to achieve that magic-infused-luxury by using a mossy, modern color palette, custom typography for the wordmark, and richly textured photography.

Like this post if you’d like to grab a drink at Conjure with me 🙋 Make sure you’re following to see more Conjure reveals because there’s still a ton coming!

Address

New York, NY

Website

https://www.francescamaida.com/

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