case study · 2026 · under nda
Elisa Vihonen
Identity, website and launch kit for a private chef working between Roma and Helsinki.

01 · brief
A blank page, an Instagram full of long tables, and an apron.
Elisa had no website and no identity — just her cooking, documented beautifully on Instagram: weddings in Sicily, midsummer dinners, long lunches at The Farm in Rome, cakes for everyone.
The brief: a home on the web that feels like her tables — soft colours, real light, hosted not staged — and a kit she can use for bookings and events. One rule from Elisa: no black, ever. One object to build from: her blue-on-blue striped apron.
02 · direction
Soft, sunlit, set for twelve.
Off-white pages, a blush panel, burgundy and cocoa instead of black. The apron stripe (#5a6cb0 on #b3b9dd) is the one graphic device: the band that holds the navigation, the cloth under every illustration, the edge of every print.
References: restaurant matchbooks, scalloped coasters, editorial food posters with cut-outs and callouts, sunlit still life with hard shadows.
03 · the name face
Dufus Doodle — drawn by Dafne in 2017.
The name is set in a typeface I drew back in 2017: loose, hollow, a little goofy. It is used for her name and headlines only, never for running text.
On the site the hollow letters are filled with frosted glass, so the photos scroll softly through the name.

n o p q r s t u v w x y z
& ? ! 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
04 · website · white version
Scattered photos around a fixed name.
A white canvas with photos scattered around the name, a pink menu panel with inline thumbnails, and the striped band pinned to the bottom of the screen.



05 · website · doodle version
Same bones, more personality.
The hand-drawn name in frosted glass with the photos scrolling through it, a numbered index menu with a big photo that follows the cursor, and a two-column about page. On phones it becomes a calm, staggered column.



06 · explored & cut — the bow intro
A real-time 3D satin bow that unties into the striped band.
Built in Three.js: a custom ribbon mesh along animated curves, matte fabric shading, stripes calibrated pixel-for-pixel to the CSS band so the ribbon lands seamlessly. It worked — and then we cut it. The site is better when it opens straight onto the food.
status: archived (js/intro3d.js)



07 · logo
Four directions, one hand.
A stacked wordmark, an EV monogram on the striped cloth, a scalloped stamp with circular type, and an illustrated lockup with the fig cake. The name is always Dufus Doodle; the marks borrow the illustration line.




08 · identity



09 · posters
One dish, one poster.
Cut-outs from Elisa's own photos, numbered callouts on thin curved lines, grain and lots of air. The last one sets mono text straight across the dish.





10 · instagram
stories · now booking / event / menu reveal — events and dates are concept examples









carousels · 1080×1350 — concept examples
11 · print






menus, events and contact details are concept examples / placeholders
12 · in the wild








internal preview composites on commercial mockup photography — to be replaced with licensed PSDs before publishing