The MAC CaféBar brand refresh

As the design agency for the Metropolitan Arts Centre (MAC), Belfast, we were challenged with refreshing its CaféBar branding. The brand needed invigoration in a post Covid environment, where there was increasing competition from cool eateries and coffee houses on their doorstep. 

We identified the MAC had something no one else had – space, lots of it, a unique space that’s home to art, theatre and culture. The CaféBar has an important part to play in the broader offering of the MAC as a place to relax and talk about big ideas – and small ones too. Or none at all. The CaféBar also needed to stand on its own two feet – as a destination in itself. Creatively we played on this duality. We reconsidered the brand positioning and a whole new visual world opened up.

We refreshed the brand identity and colour palette, to harmonise with its natural habitat of the iconic MAC building. We focused on the burnt oranges of the brick work, and we took inspiration from the only permanent art installation in the MAC – The Permanent Present, a spectrum of colour that travels through the foyer, high above CaféBar. These ‘threads’ informed our visual language.