The Cold Store

Direction A

The Salvage Slab

Cork insulation, ochre and granular, with everything pressed into it and no ink at all — because Ingrid kept every slab she could save and cut the rest into the bar front. The identity is not drawn onto the cork; it is a shape cut out of it. The guest feels it before reading it: a thumb over the impression at the door.

Where the light lands — the cork goes gold

The cut through — the shape is cut, never printed

The substrateCork, ochre and granular — the tooth is the point

The techniquePressed, with no ink at all — the thumb finds it

Cork, meeting concrete — warmth stops at the floor

Cork Slab

#EFE6DC

The surface this world is set on.

Cork

#B4653A

Sampled from the pictures — it lives in the photographs, not the layout.

Bracken

#3A2C22

What every word in this world is set in.

Ember

#C4622B

The colour allowed to lead — rules, marks, accents.

The type, as set

The Cold Store

Opening night · Saturday 14 November 2026

DisplayFraunces · display, cut for paper not screens

SupportHanken Grotesk · tracked-caps support

Refused in this world onlyKraft-paper rustic and Edison-bulb warmth

What this world had still to settle

Whether a card with no ink at all can be posted. Impression only is the whole world. An unmarked ochre board arriving in an envelope has to survive being mistaken for packing.
Whether cork can actually be printed, or only imitated. The invitation claims to be a piece of the building. Real salvaged cork is a substrate nobody has tested; a cork-toned board is a picture of one, which this world says it is not.
Whether the salvage cut can be a repeatable shape. The mark of a slab too far gone to keep whole is the identity — and no two slabs broke the same way, so a single die makes it a logo.
Where the ember is allowed to be. One ember at the edge is the only warmth in the world, and the menu, the signage and the place card all have edges that behave differently.

Direction B

The Painted Mark

Cold zinc grey carrying a white mark sprayed through a stencil plate and bled at the edges — because the name on the cast-iron door has never been repainted, and Ingrid was right not to. The mark is reproduced, never redrawn. Ranged hard, like a shipping mark, because that is what it is.

The stencil mark as it survives on the cast-iron door — The mark, reproduced *— never redrawn, never cleaned*

The cast-iron doors of the cold store — The door it lives on *— unrepainted since 1911*

Hardware, unrestored — the patina is the finish

The bleed, and the drips — the spray is the craft

Rust, left where it is — the ember, found not added

Rivets, and patina — the grey the stock has to be

Ice Shadow

#2F3A40

The surface this world is set on.

Zinc

#D9DEE0

Two jobs: the board the working pieces are printed on, and the ink every word takes on ice.

Stencil White

#FFFFFF

The mark, and nothing else. Not even the name — so the one white thing on any surface is the paint.

Ember

#C4622B

One rule per piece, and never a word — at text sizes it reads 3.0:1 and would fail.

The type, as set

The Cold Store

Opening night · Saturday 14 November 2026

DisplayHanken Grotesk · display, set tight

SupportFraunces · tracked-caps support

Set in zinc, not white — 8.6:1 on ice. White stays the paint.

The material, as delivered

The ceremonial stock Heavy ice board · invitation, welcome signage, table cards

The working stockZinc board · menu card, bar list, place cards

Quoted from this suite's own production spec — the two stocks the pieces were actually printed on. This world was always set on ice: the mark is white paint, and white paint on a zinc board is a 1.04:1 contrast, so the pieces that stand for the building take the dark stock and the pieces you pick up keep the zinc. Surfaces are rendered from that spec, not photographed.

Which stock each piece takes

The mark survives onto both stocks, but it cannot survive as paint: white on a zinc board is 1.04:1, so where the ground is ice the mark is sprayed white, and where the ground is zinc it is blind-debossed — no ink at all, read by the thumb before the eye. Rendered from this suite's production spec, not photographed.

Refused in this world onlyA cleaned-up, vectorised version of the stencil mark

What this world had still to settle

Whether a sprayed bleed can be reproduced. Bleed is the craft, and a stencil sprayed through a plate is different every time — which is either the point or a thing a press cannot deliver twice.
Whether zinc grey can be made to feel cold in the hand. The stock is asked to do what the ink cannot, and no paper has been found that does it.
Whether never repainting the door means never redrawing it. The mark on the cast-iron door is the identity, and tracing it faithfully and redrawing it clean give two different marks.
Whether a world with no warmth at all suits a restaurant cooking on live fire. The contradiction is deliberate and it is stated as a strength. It is also the whole risk, and it has not been argued against.

The Salvage Slab

The Painted Mark

Five things neither world will do.

The substance, or the signage.

The Painted Mark