Bond gave Helsinki restaurant Roster tattoo ink, mixed type and its whole interior

Roster, a bar-restaurant in Helsinki's Tori Quarters, had an eclectic-but-cohesive interior, informal service and two brisk, humorous founders; the brand had to carry all of it.

Four typefaces mixed inside single words, plus tattoo illustrations running from black menu ink to gold uniform embroidery.

Bond named the restaurant, designed the interior (custom furniture with a vintage twist, raw and refined materials), mixed Or Type's La Pontaise and L10 with a custom rough-edged face and an old-style serif, and drew tattoo-style illustrations across menus, gold-foil business cards, awnings, wine labels and embroidered uniforms.

BP&O called mixing four typefaces within single words hard to pull off but largely working, and the ink-to-embroidery illustration range a highlight; design blogs were still re-sharing the project a decade later (Abduzeedo, October 2026).

Roster is a bar-restaurant on the corner of Pohjoisesplanadi and Unioninkatu in Helsinki's Tori Quarters, founded by chefs Kari Aihinen and Paul Hickman. The pitch was fine-dining quality with the formality stripped out: an interior of custom furniture with a vintage twist, raw and refined materials and hand-picked design objects, with service to match. Bond was brought in to build the whole experience, from naming to interior design to identity.

The identity speaks in contrast. Four typefaces — Or Type's calligraphic La Pontaise and restrained L10, a custom face with irregular strokes and rough edges, and an old-style serif — are mixed inside single words, playing the formality of the past against a current informality. Tattoo-inspired illustrations carry the founders' humour across menus, gold-foil business cards, awnings, wine labels and staff uniforms, moving from simple black ink on paper to gold embroidery.

BP&O's Richard Baird reviewed the work in December 2016: mixing four typefaces within single words is 'incredibly difficult to pull off', he wrote, but here it for the most part works, and the way the illustrations move between black menu ink and gold-embroidered uniforms is 'a particular highlight' that captures the essence of the restaurant.

The interior was already eclectic but cohesive, so the identity was built on typographical contrast to express the same tension.

Mixing four typefaces inside single words let a formal voice and a casual one sit in a single logotype.

Tattoo illustrations borrow familiar associations of humour and intimacy without dominating the refined interior.

Carrying one system across menus, business cards, awnings, wine labels and uniforms turned separate touchpoints into a single experience.

Treat a restaurant as one brand world: when the same hand draws room, type, print and uniforms, casual and refined stop contradicting each other.

BP&O reviewed the identity in December 2016, its one caveat being the menu, where the font mixing read as haphazard. Abduzeedo re-shared the project in October 2026, nearly ten years after launch, framing it as a branding masterclass.