Stancato's Italian Restaurant

Local Restaurant, Catering & Retail Brand

Website Creation • Graphic Design

Stancato’s Italian Restaurant is a third-generation, Cleveland-area brand with a reputation for high-quality, traditional Italian recipes and treating its customers like family. With services in restaurant dining, catering, and carryout, as well as a retail product line, Stancato’s partnered with JAC Creative to develop a cohesive brand strategy that could scale across every customer touchpoint.

The Challenge

As Stancato’s grew, new brand applications were introduced—from pizza boxes, catering materials, apparel, and napkins, to social media, the website, and a retail line of sauces and wine. While each item carried the Stancato’s brand individually, the brand as a whole had no unifying system tying everything together.

The Goal

The goal was not to completely overhaul their identity, but they needed a clear strategy to ensure every application felt connected. JAC Creative’s goal was simple: to create cohesion across all brand collateral.

The Solution

JAC Creative began by developing a comprehensive brand strategy that would serve as the foundation for every deliverable moving forward. Rather than treating each design as a one-off, our team built a system that could adapt across categories while maintaining a recognizable connective thread.

Retail Product Brand

The first major rollout of the refined brand strategy was the retail product line, which included 6 pasta sauces, 3 finishing sauces, 3 salad dressings, and 8 wines. The client wanted these to stand out amongst its competitors on the local grocery shelves, so we created a bright but flattering color palette, used a beautiful gold foil, and included a hand-drawn illustration of the iconic Cleveland restaurant.

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Restaurant, Carry-out, and Catering

The banded "ribbon" from the retail product design became a defining visual element in all Stancato's materials. A hexagonal mosaic pattern from the more extravagant wine bottle design also worked as a unifying texture across multiple materials.

Stancato’s in-store, carry-out, and catering materials included pizza and sub boxes, carry-out bags, staff t-shirts, business cards, gallon jugs, gift cards, a van design, and more.

Restaurant Needs Designed

Catering Deliverables Designed

Carry-out Items Designed

Retail Products Designed

Website Strategy and Redesign

With the brand system firmly established, JAC Creative redesigned the Stancato’s website to reflect the updated identity. The website’s structure was rethought and organized into three clear user pathways: restaurant, carry-out, and catering.

A separate retail-focused website was also developed for the “Stancato’s at Home” product line with the intent of expanding and selling these retail products online in the future. All digital experiences intentionally leaned into a highly visual, image-forward design, aligning with the client’s preference for minimal text.

The Impact

The development of a unified brand strategy gives Stancato’s a flexible visual identity that connects restaurant operations, catering, retail packaging, and digital platforms. The brand feels cohesive across every customer touchpoint while still allowing for variety and personality between product lines.

The new system also positions Stancato’s for future growth, providing a strategic framework that can adapt as new products, locations, or initiatives are introduced.