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Yona
Branding and event design for Yona restaurant.
Client
Mike Isabella Concepts
Role
Designer
Studio
&Wiser
Yona was a cozy Japanese-Korean ramen restaurant by Chef Jonah Kim that perfectly reflected his calm, thoughtful, and subtly irreverent personality. Our brand design sought to capture this spirit with simplicity, levity, and whales.
The restaurant’s name derives from Chef Kim’s name translated into Japanese (ヨナ) and Korean (요나). We were beyond thrilled when he agreed to the whale motif as a cheeky nod to the biblical connection.
Shortly after opening, Chef Kim was invited to compete in Cochon 555, a traveling competition that pits top chefs against each other in a heritage pig roasting battle. This is how I found myself disguising whales as pigs.
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