John Beaver and Erica Perez wanted their little Oaktown Spice Shop to harken back to the Golden Days of Service. A place where high-touch, personal attention—a long forgotten ingredient of retail—would make for a delicious customer experience.

Growing up in the Bay Area, I recalled pictures of Downtown Oakland during its post-World War II heyday. The dresses, the gloves, the fedoras in the wonderful diaspora of Oakland. A time when shop owners knew all their customers by name. I wanted to evoke all of those meaningful connections, from every spice tin they sold to each hand-painted sign they put up in their store. If all of it added up to Oaktown Spice Shop feeling as if it had survived time thanks to firmly holding onto their principles, then that seemed better than just right to me.

role: Creative Director
scope: Brand Identity, Packaging, Collateral, Website, POS, Photography Art Direction