La' Shukran
La' Shukran
La' Shukran
Marketing identity for the best new restaurant in DC.
Year
Year
2024
Scope
Creative Direction
Content Strategy
Campaign Strategy
Context
Developed the pre-launch & overall marketing direction for La' Shukran, a retro-modern Levantine bistro in DC from 2024 James Beard Outstanding Chef Michael Rafidi (Albi, YELLOW) and Bar Director Radovan Jankovic (Cana, Mercy Me).
The restaurant would go on to earn Michelin recognition, Best New Restaurant in DC from The Washington Post and the RAMMY Awards, and a place on the New York Times list of the 50 Best Restaurants in America.
Developed the pre-launch & overall marketing direction for La' Shukran, a retro-modern Levantine bistro in DC from 2024 James Beard Outstanding Chef Michael Rafidi (Albi, YELLOW) and Bar Director Radovan Jankovic (Cana, Mercy Me).
The restaurant would go on to earn Michelin recognition, Best New Restaurant in DC from The Washington Post and the RAMMY Awards, and a place on the New York Times list of the 50 Best Restaurants in America.
Strategic Insight
Treat the brand as a cultural world extending beyond the restaurant - something few DC restaurants were doing on social media at the time. Every marketing decision drew from the same Levantine artistic lineage already built into the space.
Developed a marketing toolkit compounding that identity across every touchpoint - social templates built from Levantine postage stamps, self-designed merchandise, motion graphics, and launched Radio Shukran, a curated Spotify playlist extending the brand into music.
Treat the brand as a cultural world extending beyond the restaurant - something few DC restaurants were doing on social media at the time. Every marketing decision drew from the same Levantine artistic lineage already built into the space.
Developed a marketing toolkit compounding that identity across every touchpoint - social templates built from Levantine postage stamps, self-designed merchandise, motion graphics, and launched Radio Shukran, a curated Spotify playlist extending the brand into music.
Video & Photo Direction
Drawing from Levantine art, cinema, photography, and music, the visual direction merged archival cultural references with analog film methods. Photo direction used analog and digital flash photography, pulling color and fabric directly from the interior into product photography. Directed, filmed, and edited video content alongside Benjistills. Every format leaned informative, art-forward, and music-driven - compounding the restaurant's central theme of cultural identity.
Pre-Launch Campaign
After opening delays, rebuilt anticipation for the restaurant without relying on traditional press, food, or beverage photography through a citywide wheat paste campaign. Wheat pasting - an old-school, street-level tactic absent from restaurant marketing in DC at the time - mirrored the restaurant's retro aesthetic and embedded Arabic typography directly into the urban streetscape as a cultural presence. The campaign was documented as a visual introduction of the founders and generated organic buzz online before the restaurant opened.
Van Leo-Inspired Photoshoot
Directed portrait photography referencing overlooked 1950s Egyptian-Armenian photographer Van Leo, recreating his iconic studio portraiture with the restaurant's founders.
Elia Suleiman-Inspired Videoshoot
Video direction drew from Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, translating his restrained cinematic framing into food storytelling.
Drawing from Levantine art, cinema, photography, and music, the visual direction merged archival cultural references with analog film methods. Photo direction used analog and digital flash photography, pulling color and fabric directly from the interior into product photography. Directed, filmed, and edited video content alongside Benjistills. Every format leaned informative, art-forward, and music-driven - compounding the restaurant's central theme of cultural identity.
Pre-Launch Campaign
After opening delays, rebuilt anticipation for the restaurant without relying on traditional press, food, or beverage photography through a citywide wheat paste campaign. Wheat pasting - an old-school, street-level tactic absent from restaurant marketing in DC at the time - mirrored the restaurant's retro aesthetic and embedded Arabic typography directly into the urban streetscape as a cultural presence. The campaign was documented as a visual introduction of the founders and generated organic buzz online before the restaurant opened.
Van Leo-Inspired Photoshoot
Directed portrait photography referencing overlooked 1950s Egyptian-Armenian photographer Van Leo, recreating his iconic studio portraiture with the restaurant's founders.
Elia Suleiman-Inspired Videoshoot
Video direction drew from Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, translating his restrained cinematic framing into food storytelling.
Wayfinding Campaign
Developed a campaign that reframed the restaurant's hidden entrance as a brand asset instead of a problem to solve.
Guests were getting lost looking for La' Shukran - a door in an alley - so the campaign turned the shared confusion into an invitation: where the 🐪 is La' Shukran?
Directed a cinematic long reel following a nighttime drive through Union Market ending at the alley door. Sticker placements across DC seeding the question around the city, with directional arrows in Union Market leading guests to the entrance like a follow-the-white-rabbit trail. The video is live and performing; the sticker campaign was not deployed.
The confusion becomes the marketing. The search becomes the experience.
Developed a campaign that reframed the restaurant's hidden entrance as a brand asset instead of a problem to solve.
Guests were getting lost looking for La' Shukran - a door in an alley - so the campaign turned the shared confusion into an invitation: where the 🐪 is La' Shukran?
Directed a cinematic long reel following a nighttime drive through Union Market ending at the alley door. Sticker placements across DC seeding the question around the city, with directional arrows in Union Market leading guests to the entrance like a follow-the-white-rabbit trail. The video is live and performing; the sticker campaign was not deployed.
The confusion becomes the marketing. The search becomes the experience.
Collaborators
Brand: Polygraph
Photography: Hawkeye Johnson
Videography: Benjistills
Graphic Design: Jacqueline Johnsson
Motion Design: James Harrison
Brand: Polygraph
Photography: Hawkeye Johnson
Videography: Benjistills
Graphic Design: Jacqueline Johnsson
Motion Design: James Harrison