De Kleine Duivel Rebrand
BRANDING WEB DESIGN TYPOGRAPHY
Digital-first rebranding concept for De Kleine Duivel (Flemish/Dutch: the little devil), a Baltimore bar renowned for its extensive list of Belgian imports and weekly jazz performers in the tradition of Django Reinhardt. A celebration of the “hot jazz” aesthetics of interbellum Europe—and a nod to classic Trappist brouwerij branding—this playful new brand identity is defined by its unexpected type pairings and “hot” palette.
GOAL
A moderately upscale bar in a popular nightlife district among the over-30 set, De Kleine Duivel held great potential to lean into its two-pronged concept as a destination for pricey imported beer and a hot spot for live jazz. Its original branding was spare in its execution, consisting of just two logo assets and two colors, with no real brand language spoken in either its physical or digital presence. The goal with this rebrand was to give this beloved bar a visual identity and online presence more befitting of its concept: well researched, rich with cultural context, and upscale but fun.
TYPOGRAPHY & PALETTE
Inspired by the bar’s weekly performances by a local hot-jazz ensemble in the tradition of Django Reinhardt, European “hot jazz” publications and ephemera from the 1930s laid the groundwork for the rebrand’s eclectic typography. The result is a contemporary mix of Franklin Gothic, Clarendon, and DIN with juxtapositions modeled after their inspirations. The warm color palette was inspired by the aged paper and inks used in these source materials, as well as beautiful jewel-tone food photography that the bar was already using.
LOGO
The original owners have said that the bar’s name, Dutch for “the little devil,” is a hint at Belgium’s famous Trappist beers, brewed by monks at Trappist monasteries and often branded with quirky religious imagery. The bar’s original logo seemed to miss an opportunity to play with the Trappist angle, so this became a goal for the rebrand. I illustrated a “devil” character—and named him Django—using the shape of a traditional Belgian tulip glass and flat, circular facial features for a mischievous expression.
The small letter i in the logotype is a reference to the Dutch word kleine (“small”). The red dot on top can be seen as a sort of playful, devilish character in itself that can easily recur throughout the brand. The interlocking letters and raised small i are another reference to Dutch typography, specifically inspired by the Dutch typographic convention of sometimes nesting the letter i into the curve of a j when those letters appear together as a digraph.
IN USE
The redesigned website features large hero images and bold headers in Dutch with English subheadings. The cursor is a simple red dot, a callback to the logotype that reinforces the playfulness of that mischievous little devil.
With the help of a data-merge Figma plugin, the bar’s impressive list of 150+ beers has been upgraded from embedded JPEGs of the print menu to an interactive listing that can be sorted by beer type or brewery name.