The Teetotalist

Zero-Proof Social Club

Brand identity, menus, signage design, and social, built across two years as a pop-up became a permanent room.

Client
Amanda Brincat and Kathryn Altman

Year
2023

Logo for The Teotolist Social Club with a decorative floral element in the center, set on a navy blue background with gold lines in the corners.

They needed a brand before they had a building.

Amanda and Kathryn found me on Instagram in November 2022. They had a pop-up booked for three weekends and needed something to put on a sign.

They'd made something themselves already. It was pretty and it could have belonged to a speakeasy in any city in the country.

Three diverse friends smiling and hugging against a plain white background.

They already knew who they were for

The most useful thing in their intake form was one sentence about their audience: women 25 to 40 with money to spend on going out, and, in their words, "although we will be an alcohol free space, we do not expect to cater only to the sober crowd."

That's not a sober bar. That's a bar, for people who want a night out, some of whom don't drink. They wanted it to be somewhere LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and women felt they had a community, and they described the personality they were after as fun, daring, inspirational, cheerful, and trendy.

Not one of those words is calm.

Which matters, because most branding in this space defaults to daylight. Soft palettes, botanicals, the visual vocabulary of a juice bar. It's well-intentioned and it confirms the exact thing people are worried about, which is that sobriety means the fun ended. But nobody goes to a bar at two in the afternoon.

The mark

A night sky, a moon, and the Tower Bridge lit up gold. Sacramento's bridge is already that color, so the palette was inherited from the city rather than chosen.

The bridge was my addition. They hadn't asked for a landmark, and putting one in a mark ties you to a place permanently. But a pop-up with no address needs to belong somewhere.

Stylized illustration of a bridge with two towers against a night sky with stars, moon, and text 'The Teetotalist'.
Sign attached to red brick wall for The Teetotalist Zero-Proof Social Club, Sacramento, CA, established in 2022, featuring an illustration of a bridge and a crescent moon.

"We had so many compliments on our signage this weekend. We are still blown away by what you put together."

— Owner, Amanda Brincat

Then I built everything else.

A bar generates an enormous amount of material. Drinks change. Hours change. Events get announced on three days' notice. If every one of those is a new design decision, the brand dissolves within a month, usually into whatever template was closest to hand at 11pm.

So the whole system runs on one shape. The arch that frames the logo also frames the drink cards, the hours posts, and the menus. It came out of their original lettering, so it was already theirs.

A promotional poster for a holiday pop-up bar called "Lively Sour." It features a simple illustration of a cocktail glass in the center, with text listing ingredients: Three spirits livener, all bitter aromatic bitters, vanilla simple syrup, lemon. The bottom shows a stylized bridge and moon graphic with the text "The Tетоtallist" and "Holiday Pop-Up."" The top-left corner has the text "Featured Drink" in a curved line.
A sign mounted on a brick wall reads "The TETOTALIST Zero-Proof Social Club Sacramento, CA Est. 2022" with a graphic of a bridge and crescent moon.
Interior of a social club with a large sign reading 'The Teetotalist Zero-Proof Social Club'. The sign features a logo of a building with rays emanating from it, and the text 'Sacramento' and 'Est. 2022'. There is a woman walking past the reception area, which has a dark, honeycomb-patterned front desk and gray tiled walls.

What I'd tell you about it.

The interesting problem wasn't drawing a bridge. It was building something that had to work at a folding table one month and a brick storefront the next. A brand for a business like that isn't a logo. It's a set of decisions made in advance so that nobody has to make them again at eleven at night before a Saturday event.

"Your work is amazing and you've helped us level up and become more professional. We are continuously impressed with you!"

— Owner, Kathryn Altman