Empellon Al Pastor

Empellon Al Pastor is a cool dive bar / restaurant concept located in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. I was tasked with creating a new logotype and a total rebrand of the business from the ground up. Given that Al Pastor is located in the former epicenter of punk rock music in New York City (right on St. Mark’s Place across from Tompkins Square Park) I chose to deliver a concept that focused on the raw and edgy aesthetic of punk rock typography, zines and fliers. I created a 26 page digital deck offering up my vision as well as an assortment of logotype treatments and visual examples.

Once this was approved by owner Alex Stupak I proceeded to craft the rest of the assets including menus, signage, posters, stickers, apparel and anything that required a graphic or a design. Alex is a longtime fan of metal music as well, so I made sure to incorporate elements of that in the rebrand.

I did a lot of research for the project looking at archives of punk rock show fliers and ephemera from years past. Obviously given the freeform nature of the visual aesthetic and language it was an incredibly fun opportunity for me to break most traditional design rules and just sort of have a go at it. This meant lots of great fonts and lots of heavy distressing and grunge. The typeface selection for this project is seemingly endless, including some type that has not been featured on this website before, like Swiss Grit (Rafael Nascimento), Spacedock Stencil (Cumberland Fontworks), Mersey Cowboy (Chequered Ink) and Timber Wolf (Rook Design Supply).

The “empellón” wordmark is custom drawn.