Nancy’s Barn
Café Brand Refresh & Website, 2025–26
studio.marbar refreshed the brand and redesigned the website for Nancy's Barn, the award-winning chowder café in Ballyliffin, Co. Donegal, between 2025–2026 and continues to support it through a design retainer.
Sector
Hospitality
Food & Drink
Services
Brand Refresh
Squarespace Website
Credits
Photography - Reel-ality Media
Videography - Reel-ality Media
-
Nancy’s Barn, an award-winning café and restaurant in Ballyliffin, approached me to refine and modernise their brand while preserving the heart and heritage that make them a local favourite.
With their visual identity system feeling outdated and inconsistent across touch points, they needed a cohesive brand strategy that reflected their Donegal roots, coastal setting, and warm, welcoming personality without straying too far from what their loyal customers love.
-
My idea was to create a refreshed brand direction that felt grounded, contemporary, and unmistakably “Nancy’s.” Their logo was to remain the same, but everything else was up for discussion.
I refined their colour palette, typography, illustrations and supporting textures to build a visual system that is warm, characterful and reflective of both their rustic barn charm and charismatic owner.
Nancy’s also invested in a new series of images of their exterior, interior, food and special services like weddings and Christmas events to help reinforce their new brand strategy.
The final strategy brings clarity and cohesion to the brand, allowing them to show up consistently across digital and print while staying true to the personality that makes Nancy’s Barn memorable.
-
We couldn’t be happier with the finished result. A huge thank you for your incredible patience, creativity, professionalism, and attention to detail. The branding and website are everything we hoped for and more, we are so proud of it!
Kieran Doherty
Nancy’s World Famous Chowder
The hero of the Nancy’s brand is it’s World Chowder Champion status (and the man who made it).
With a warm passion for good food, Kieran tried hundreds of chowder recipes, before coming up with his award winning version which has its roots firmly in Donegal, but with a wee Spanish twist. Following his success in the All-Ireland Cook Off in Kinsale, Co. Cork in 2016 he represented Ireland in the World Chowder Championships in Rhode Island, USA in 2017 - which he won!
