Anchor bar
Building a complete brand experience for an iconic restaurant.
Anchor Bar needed a brand system that could honor its history while feeling relevant to a new generation of guests. As the birthplace of the original Buffalo wing, the restaurant already had a powerful story. The opportunity was to turn that legacy into a more cohesive, recognizable experience across every place the brand appeared.
I led the creative direction across the full identity system, website, restaurant signage, environmental graphics, menus, packaging, and supporting brand collateral. The goal was to create a world that felt bold, energetic, and unmistakably rooted in Buffalo without becoming nostalgic or overly literal.
All work done as a part of Collins + Co.
my rolE
Creative Direction
Brand Strategy
Brand Identity
Art Direction
Website Design
Environmental Branding
Restaurant Signage
Packaging
Print Collateral
Digital Content
Team Leadership
THE WORK
A refreshed identity built around an established legacy
The brand needed to feel familiar to longtime guests while becoming more consistent and ownable across locations and formats.
We developed a visual identity that drew from Anchor Bar’s history, personality, and place within Buffalo culture. The system balanced heritage cues with a cleaner, more contemporary structure, creating a brand that could carry the weight of its story without feeling stuck in the past.
Typography, color, graphic elements, and photography were designed to work together as a flexible system rather than a collection of disconnected assets.
A digital experience designed around discovery and conversion
The website needed to serve several audiences at once, from tourists researching the original Buffalo wing to local guests looking for menus, locations, events, and ordering information.
We created a digital experience that brought the story of the brand forward while making practical information easy to find. The design combined bold food photography, clear navigation, location-specific content, and ecommerce or ordering pathways within a cohesive visual system.
The result positioned the website as both a storytelling platform and a functional business tool.
Restaurant signage and environmental branding
The identity extended into the physical experience through exterior signage, wayfinding, menu systems, wall graphics, promotional displays, and branded environmental elements.
Each application was developed to feel integrated with the restaurant rather than added on afterward. The signage system needed to be highly visible, easy to navigate, and flexible enough to work across different architectural environments while still creating a consistent Anchor Bar experience.
Environmental graphics also gave us an opportunity to bring the brand’s history into the space through storytelling, archival references, and larger-scale visual moments.
A full suite of guest-facing materials
The broader brand package included the touchpoints guests encountered before, during, and after their visit.
The system extended across:
Menus and table materials
Takeout and food packaging
Restaurant and exterior signage
Promotional collateral
Digital and social assets
Merchandise applications
Event and campaign materials
Location-specific communications
Every element was designed to feel part of the same brand world, from the primary identity down to the smallest functional detail.
A scalable system for a multi-location brand
Because Anchor Bar operates across multiple locations, the identity needed enough structure to remain recognizable while allowing for local needs, changing promotions, and different restaurant formats.
We created a flexible toolkit that established clear standards for typography, color, imagery, signage, digital content, and collateral. This gave individual locations room to operate while protecting the consistency and equity of the larger brand.
The result was a more unified experience that could scale without losing the personality and history that made Anchor Bar distinctive.
