.02 (2026) brand strategy, project management, production, photography
Casa Wong
Two shoot days, nine mapped scenes, an eight course menu, and a full brand world, produced inside a working home kitchen.
Client: Casa Wong
Casa Wong began as an intimate dinner series cooked and hosted from chef Ernest's Manhattan apartment. To relaunch, it needed a brand system that could scale across events, collateral, and social without losing the closeness the dinners are known for.
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Casa Wong began as an intimate dinner series cooked and hosted from chef Ernest's Manhattan apartment. To relaunch, it needed a brand system that could scale across events, collateral, and social without losing the closeness the dinners are known for. The work introduced an evolved identity, printed menus, merch, set design, an eight course menu, and a styled cast of guests, all captured in a single weekend inside the same working apartment kitchen the dinners come from.
Casa Wong was built in partnership with Studio 288. Our Fall 2025 exploration landed on a new visual direction, Cultural Collage, told through Chinese visual references, red tones, and film photo warmth.
The refreshed brand has been introduced in new dinners and opened collaboration opportunities on the strength of the new system. A full scale relaunch campaign built on the photoshoot imagery is planned for later this summer, with imagery, menus, posters, and merchandise available.
The Process
The full arc, from brand direction to the final frame. How Casa Wong was built, step by step.
Explore the process
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Brand direction
The exploration presented two brand directions. The resulting direction was raw, playful, and community driven, with the candid imperfection of a disposable camera passed around the table.
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Palette and identity
Paste, linen, chili, and cilantro, inspired by the chef's original creations. A script logotype and red line illustration set against Chinese visual references and glimpses of NYC chaos that come together in a warm, grounded palette.
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Brand kit
Printed menus, a t-shirt and merch line, and posters built from Chinese phrases and personal ephemera, retro small business posters, rip-off-calendar dates, and family photos, so every printed piece carries some personal history.
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Shot mapping
I mapped nine scenes onto the apartment's three zones, kitchen, counter, and dining area, each with its own crops, lighting notes, and target frames. Every setup change on the day was methodically sequenced to minimize transition times.
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Casting and styling
The guest cast was styled from per talent decks, each with a color story, hair direction, and a bring-options list.
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Menu design
Menu design that highlighted iconic dishes, per course plating specs that carried food styling tips down to the detail, additional food prep notes to optimize the appearance of the dishes for shoot day.
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Workstream ownership
Charting out the master plan across all workstreams - tablescape design, T-shirt design and print, scheduling, prop sourcing, talent coordination. Each functional area had a clear owner and schedule, with dependencies and deadlines mapped out clearly.
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Shoot day coordination
A two day schedule staggered call times so styling never blocked shooting, built resets between setups, and ended day one by sealing prepped food so it survived to day two. Kitchen and prep scenes shot first, tablescape and guests the next day.