Design Inspiration 1 - Louise Fili

Louise Fili Ltd was founded in 1989 and specializes in logo, package, restaurant and book design. Fili was previously a senior designer for Herb Lubalin. She has taught and lectured on graphic design and typography and her work is in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, and the Bibliotheque Nationale. In 2004, she was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame.

Elegantissima. A 256-page monograph featuring the nearly forty-year career of Louise Fili, from books to restaurants to food packaging and identities, with illuminating case studies.

A custom script evokes the lost art of correspondence for this logo design for Paperless Post, a website for elegant online stationery.

Pearl Oyster Bar introduced the lobster-roll craze to Manhattan in the 1990s. Fifteen years later, Louise Fili Ltd was asked to give Pearl the graphic identity it deserved.

ocated on the historic Post Road in serene Bedford, New York, this is a lovingly-restored cafe, restaurant, and inn. The postage stamp-logo is a portrait of the owner’s grandfather.

This identity was designed for Darby Litho, a multi-generational printing business, to commemorate its 80th anniversary. The logo references letterhead designs from the early 1900s.

Where do Florentines go for the finest handmade shoes, leather gloves, artisanal chocolates, and lingerie? All this and more (especially gelato) can be found in this pocket-sized guide.

Mermaid Inn is a charming restaurant in the style of a seafood shack that one might stumble onto while walking along the beach—except that it happens to be located in the East Village.

Designed as a classic French enamel sign from the thirties, the logo for Le Monde, an uptown brasserie, weds vintage dimensional letterforms to a contemporary visual aesthetic.

The design of the Pink Door logo signals the eclectic character of this lively Italian eatery in Seattle. The pattern and typography are reminiscent of 1930s pasticceria papers from Italy.

A logo for a dentist shouldn’t have to look ordinary. Nor should the reminder card be off-putting. The identity for this Madison Avenue prosthodontist is as distinctive as his practice.

Over 8400 mosaic tiles were digitally manipulated to create this subway poster for School of Visual Arts. It can now be seen as a 38-foot blow-up at 23rd Street and Third Avenue.

Creating a mark for Tiffany was an interesting challenge: to design a monogram that could be small enough for the winder of a man’s watch, or large enough for a construction shed.

When Tocqueville moved their successful five-year-old restaurant a few doors down the block, the logo was upgraded along with the decor. The new version was created on blotter paper.

All information was taken from Louise Fili's website - here.

If you want to know more, I have just found an interview with her, carried out by Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge...

 Enjoy the inspiration!