Mama Shelter
Anisette Petite lends a fresh and friendly air to the identity of Mama Shelter, an award-winning group of design hotels with locations in Lyon, Marseille, Paris, and Instanbul. London agency GBH (Gregory Bonner Hale) wrote about their work for the brand in February:
[Mama Shelter’s] design interiors are chic and eclectic with a drop of surreal humour and exposed concrete walls collide with graffitied blackboard ceilings and retro artefacts. The overall atmosphere is a combination of relaxed cosiness meets offbeat artist commune!
Briefed to design the identity and all touch points throughout the existing and new hotels, something memorable and unusual was required to reflect the eclectic nature of Mama .
The result is a logo that is bold and unconventional, warm and cozy and plays off the name “Mama”. A chicken sits over the name, the negative space between its legs making the shape of an egg. Meanwhile, the hotel locations are differentiated by adding “leg tags” to the logo.
The logo is indeed an eyecatcher, immediately hinting at the unique personality of these accommodations. What they don’t mention there is that Anisette Petite is a key part of Mama Shelter’s look, and they utilize the typeface thoroughly. Unfortunately, some of the website text is far too small and light, especially for modern displays, and pieces like the (otherwise useful) map and guide are lacking attention to typographic detail. (Boo, full justification!) But some type, such as the large headlines on solid colored rects, works great.
Incidentally, Porchez Typofonderie is working on a comprehensive revision of Anisette Pettite, reducing contrast overall and adding new glyphs for ‘g’, ‘y’ (without the looped descender), and ‘a’.
