The principal of 7th & Seventh Designs is John Cortese. John is a woodworker, an artisan, a craftsman. He builds some of the most beautiful furniture you’ve ever seen. In his younger years, he apprenticed with a Japanese violin maker. It was a true “Karate Kid” story, as all he was allowed to do for some time was sharpen the knives and make the tea. Nowadays, he owns his own company and can charge upwards of $10,000 for a custom dining table.
When we first met him, he gave me this business card:
When we decided to do a new identity for him, he wanted to change his company’s name to reflect his heritage (he’s a Brooklyn boy and grew up on the corner of 7th Street and 7th Avenue). He also brought in a menu from a restaurant he frequented, and wanted to match the green on it because he said that color always made him happy. We came up with this:
We also retouched photos he had taken of his products, to make them pop more.
We used those in the product catalogs I designed, as well as in postcards we used for marketing:
