La Glace Premium French Ice Cream
The art of living makes little distinction between work and play, labour and leisure, mind and body, love and creation — there is rarely division. The pursuit of fully immersed artisanal creativity is the vision and the adventure.
When we set out to create the La Glace brand, the most important emotional value was for the brand and all touch points to embody love and invite connection. The notion that life’s best moments are better when cherished together became the core sentiment that we set out to express through the design details. We focused on harnessing sentimentality for the past — we leveraged the idea of nostalgia to create a space that would send people somewhere romantic and trigger positive memories. Elements such as brass, marble, the rounded bar, and most of all, the colour mint evoke this notion.
The overarching art direction was born from a fascination of the mid-war transitional period between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Wherein flowing curvatures migrated to geometric poetry. As two distinct styles that sit side by side in art history’s timeline, we asked the question, what was the bridge between the two styles, how do you go from Art Nouveau’s infamous Alphonse Mucha-esque overly styled, curved and decadent line work towards a more geometric bursting style? What would the style in-between those two periods look like? This was our inspiration for the details found throughout the space, not geometric and not overly ornate — a middle ground, a marriage
of the two distinct periods.
of the two distinct periods.
All things are better when shared with someone cherished.
The La Glace gourmet ice cream brand platform was crafted under the core belief that making moments with loved ones simply makes life more meaningful. From the tagline to the custom wall mural inspired by the passionate time between Art Nouveau and Art Deco (with a Chinoiserie influence) and the pairs of peacock lovers, each detail of the cafe and brand was designed with the aspiration for connectivity with each other.
Custom Hand-Painted Wall Mural with Custom Branded Pattern
Connecting and integrating different design movements was integral to our goal in creating a unique brand experience (evident in the mural, bar design lines and furniture designs). By linking the Chinoiserie movement (the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and East Asian artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts) and Art Nouveau we were able to express the brand's sentiments of love and connection — we designed a hand-painted, gold-leafed mural that integrated Chinoiserie elements and the brand's mascots; pairs of peacocks. Distinctive use of Art Nouveau curving line work in an understated means intertwined into Chinoiserie floral and bird scene motifs create an unexpected story. It took two weeks to hand paint the mural and used three colours.
Grey and Mint Paint are custom matched to brand colours,
from Benjamin Moore and gold-leafing was provided by the painter.
from Benjamin Moore and gold-leafing was provided by the painter.
The barstools were a vintage find. We loved how they are reminiscent of the 1928 Marcel Breuer Cesca chair style and were completely refurbished and upholstered. We stripped them of their late 80’s coating, powder coated them and reupholstered them in a mint hue, ostrich embossed vinyl.
The banquette is a custom design and fabrication designed to invite people to take moments together.
Fabricated of steel and then powder coated in a brass finish.
The curved bar, window vinyl and printed assets with their ornamental romance depicted nod to the decadence of line work found in the Horta House in Brussels built in 1901, a masterpiece from the Art Nouveau period.
Custom Brass Menu Board
Three sheets of solid brass, each had 20,000 two millimeter holes drilled into them to hold the peg letters
which display the decadent flavour offering.
From the interior design, furniture design, branding, custom packaging, custom shopping bag design, wall mural art, art direction, custom apron and uniform design, custom ice cream vessel design, brass menu board to the retail signage, we poured our hearts into creating an emotional brand experience for the luxury Ice Cream Parlour, La Glace.
Designed in Vancouver, Canada, by arithmetic.
Photography by Gillian Stevens
