Pie Bar: Building a Brand with Personality, Consistency, and UX Thinking

Overview

When I began working with Pie Bar, a small family-owned shop in the heart of Ballard, Seattle, owner Natalie Bleifuss had a vision of expanding the brand beyond a single location. My role was to help establish Pie Bar’s visual identity, customer experience, and community presence through UX and graphic design.

This case study highlights how I helped transform Pie Bar from a neighborhood shop into a recognizable and scalable brand.

Goals

  • Develop a distinct brand voice on social media to engage the community

  • Redesign Pie Bar’s logo and brand identity to reflect its warmth and charm

  • Create customer-friendly menus, signage, and packaging for both storefront and mobile units

  • Ensure consistency in visual design and messaging across platforms and merchandise

  • Solve practical UX challenges in fast-paced, real-world environments

Pie Bar Seattle

Process & Key Projects

Establishing a Brand Voice on Social Media

  • Conducted hashtag research to connect Pie Bar with both the food industry and local Seattle community.

  • Followed and engaged with local businesses and charities to embed Pie Bar within the neighborhood ecosystem.

  • Crafted content with a warm, humorous, and authentic tone—reflecting the family-run nature of the business rather than generic corporate messaging.

  • Introduced more artistic photography of pies and shop life to stand out visually.

  • Impact: Built stronger community engagement and a loyal social media following.

The Logo and Brand Identity

It started with an Instagram post

March 14th is Pie Day. It is the New Years Eve of the pie making industry. Sparked by this simple post, Pie Bar’s new logo concept was born

Early designs leaned heavily on the math symbolism. I recognized the need to capture the emotional qualities customers used to describe Pie Bar: “adorable, warm, inviting.”

The first draft of

Pie Bar logo design

I sketched a more rounded, friendly lettering that was refined by another designer on the project that became the final trademarked logo.

Now that we have a trademarked logo we wanted to get it out in the world. So I extended the brand identity into merchandise, packaging, and to-go bags, t-shirts, testing designs with an 8-person demographic group to ensure alignment with Pie Bar’s audience. I wanted to be sure to keep a consistent aesthetic and tone to the wording whenever possible to match what we had been doing on social media.

Impact: Established a recognizable and lovable logo system that scaled with the business.

The Pie Bar Food Trucks

The Pie Bar Van Wrap

  • Faced with a same-day deadline to redesign Pie Bar’s delivery vans.

  • Improved upon the initial layout by making graphics larger, bolder, and more impactful for high visibility on city streets.

  • Incorporated feedback from the customer demographic group to finalize the design.

Impact: Vans became rolling billboards, reinforcing Pie Bar’s playful and bold identity.

Food Truck Branding & UX Problem-Solving

The Challenge:

  • The Kirkland food truck needed local promotion, but traditional A-frame signs were prohibited by city regulations.

The Solution:

  • Conducted local research, discovered unused patches of land, and designed lawn signs instead.

  • Created a magnet-based menu system to replace messy, handwritten chalkboards.

    • High-contrast pink-on-black design for readability

    • Individual magnets for each flavor (easy updates)

    • Single price header for fast price changes

Impact: Clearer customer experience, compliance with local laws, and lower costs.

The original menu was hand written every day under the serving window with bright, colorful markers. People had a very difficult time reading it and if it rained the colors would run making it even more difficult. The section where the menu was written was a large piece of metal that hung in front of the window. So I made a menu on magnets. Each flavor had it’s own magnet so if one ran out it could easily be taken off the board. I used the signature shade of pink against black for good contrast and readability. I also only put the price of the pies on the header magnet so if it ever changed we would only need to replace that one that listed the price.

The Pie Van

The original design

Updated Design

Instruction Stickers for Thanksgiving Pies

  • Identified a recurring customer pain point: how to store and prepare whole pies for Thanksgiving.

  • Interviewed staff and bakers to gather the most common questions and clear, correct answers.

  • Designed instructional stickers for pie boxes covering storage and reheating guidance.

Impact: Reduced customer confusion, saved staff time answering repetitive questions, and improved the overall customer experience.

Takeaways

Working with Pie Bar was an exercise in fast-paced, adaptable UX design. Key lessons included:

  • UX isn’t just digital—it’s how people interact with menus, packaging, signage, and even city regulations.

  • Always validate design ideas with real users (in this case, Pie Bar’s target demographic).

  • Consistency of tone and visual identity builds trust across both social media and in-person experiences.

  • A designer’s role is not just execution—it’s also problem solving, researching feasibility, and translating brand values into tangible experiences.

Results

  • Transformed Pie Bar into a scalable brand ready for multiple locations, trucks, and merchandise lines.

  • Created a cohesive visual identity rooted in warmth, humor, and approachability.

  • Improved customer usability through better menus, packaging, and communication materials.

  • Helped Pie Bar become a recognizable and beloved local brand with an expanding footprint.