Paddy’s Place is a small café and bakery set in the puzzle adventure game Professor Layton and the Last Specter. The owner, Paddy, serves the best pastries and buns in the village of Misthallery.
Due to a mythical specter rampaging the town and destroying the signage outside the café, business has been slow lately.
I redesigned the outside signage for Paddy’s Place to fit the both style of the video game and the atmosphere of the town, using the destruction as an opportunity to to refresh the branding and visualize what this place might look like in real life.
Because screen captures of this video game have such low resolutions, finding ways to display the branding in context while maintaining the sense of place proved challenging. I searched for applications that weren’t too modern in order to keep the charming, cozy atmosphere of an English village.
Sketches for the logo were inspired by details found throughout the Professor Layton series and contemporary branding examples for small cafés.
I initially tried to recreate the original signage shown in the game, but later decided on a simpler color combination to increase legibility. Pairing serif and uncial type was the key to balancing the Irish influence from the owner with the classic feel of the bakery.
The final Paddy’s Place logo contains long and stacked versions, allowing for greater flexibility in navigating applications with varying dimensions.
The Irish heritage of the café owner played a significant part in the branding and menu design. Additionally, many of these menu items are options your character can buy in the extra RPG mode of the game.
