Kick Ass Café

After previously working for their sister hostel Budget Backpackers, we were invited to create masses of work for their new business the Kick Ass Hostel in Edinburgh’s historical Grassmarket. We went with a fun but professional feel throughout, mixing clean typography with friendly fonts and some crazy illustrations! The designs all crossed classic design elements to represent the history of the city and the area itself, together with fresh modern design to fit with the younger clientele and the welcoming mood of the company.

This page shows the signage for their ground floor café, which is also open to the public. The café logo was drawn as a classic heraldic shield clashing with more modern friendly type and headed with the Kick Ass Hostel donkey head logo. This branding is used throughout the venue and it’s publicity.

Their windows face onto the bustling Grassmarket, so we used bold window vinyl together with bright neon signage to promote the business to the passing custom. The window vinyl helped welcome non-residents, as well as selling their free wifi. The neon (which we also designed) gave a punchy identity to the facadé and meant it can’t be missed, especially in the evening!

Inside the café, vinyl was used again on their glass door, and their logo fitted across a massive sheet of corrugated iron along the wall. A mounted drinks menu was designed and fitted behind the counter using their friendly in-house style to supplement the printed menus which are covered with speech bubbles containing the surnames of Kick Ass characters real and fictional.

We did a lot more design work throughout the venue and other elements can be found elsewere on this site (or via the links below).