While varied, the identity’s colour palette is predominantly made up of chilli red and peony pink, a nod to the “fiery” cooking style and flavours. The secondary palette, however, takes cues from the films of iconic directors Wong Kar-Wai and Hou Hsiao-Hsien, both well known for their striking high-contrast style. “We opted for a palette dialled up on warmth and saturation whilst retaining a degree of softness and an analogue quality,” Jingqi says.
It’s not every day you get asked to create a whole new visual look for one of your favourite restaurants, so Jingqi knows this project is a special one, landing in her inbox when she least expected it. “It was such a pleasant surprise because they were the first restaurant I had tried when I moved to New York and I’ve been a fan of their food ever since,” Jingqi says. “Looking back, it was truly meant to be!” Being raised in Beijing for the first 13 years of her life before moving to Vancouver, Jingqi now sees the project as “secretly a love letter to my home”.
Overall, she hopes that MáLà Project’s look will give its attendees a more all-encompassing perspective on China’s visual culture. “Food is a reflection of culture and a carrier of memories, and a restaurant is this magical context where those memorable experiences are created,” she ends. “While I would, of course, love for people to experience all the flavours and culture in a new light, at the end of the day, I’m the happiest when guests are simply having a good time, surrounded by the visual universe we dreamt up.”
