Chef’s Table - Designer Duo
Molly and Russ Smith are the husband-and-wife design team known as PMS Design. Working from their Oakhurst office - a renovated Sinclair gas station - they have created restaurant logos, menus and signage for Canoe, SoHo, Seeger’s, Dick & Harry’s, Food 101, Ted’s Montana Grill and Coast 92.
Creative Loafing: Do you get ribbing about being “PMS” Design?
Molly Smith: My business partner used to be Pat and it was Pat and Molly’s Studio. PMS colors are used in design, of course. It’s a double entendre. No one ever forgets our name.
Russ Smith: I used to work for Molly on nights and weekends. I left Ketchum as creative director four years ago.
Where does your design inspiration come from?
Russ: We work in tandem with interior architecture and design firms on color palates, design elements, fabrics and fixtures, playing off things they are doing. The whole thing then looks like a complete package from one source.
Molly: Work we are doing on a new concept for Raving Brands is being incorporated into wallpaper!
How do you go about creating a distinctive restaurant logo?
Molly: Restaurant logos are some of the easiest ones to do because they know so well who they are and who their audience is before they come to us. Chefs are real involved. They know the food, price, tagline and atmosphere - they’ve really thought it through. So we can fulfill their criteria and convey those feelings. A lot of other corporate businesses are a lot more vague or are too big to fit into a logo.
Are there common elements to a restaurant logo?
Molly: Not at all. Russ and I have extremely different styles. Mine is classic and elegant and Russ is playful and bold, so there is a real difference between our work. The ones we collaborate on are better than the work either of us does alone.
Russ: I usually show pages and pages of pencil sketches to Molly and then she tweaks them. For every logo, we both collaborate to some extent.
When you eat in restaurants, how does it feel to pick up business cards and read menus?
Molly: We notice everything, we’re much more discriminating. A lot of times we go, ‘We could help them.’