Visual identity and digital experience for Europe's first underwater restaurant
Overview
In Norwegian, the word "under" carries a dual meaning: below and wonder. It's a rare instance where a name does everything at once. That duality became the foundation for everything we built around it.
Under is Europe's first underwater restaurant, perched on a craggy shoreline in the remote village of Båly in southern Norway, five metres below the surface of the North Sea. The building was designed by Snøhetta. Our role was to give it a voice: the naming, visual identity, website, and booking experience.
Approach
Projects like this don't come with a template. What they require is deep listening.
We spent time with the team at Under to understand what made this place genuinely unlike anything else. Not the novelty of being underwater, that's the first thing everyone reaches for. What struck us was the perspective. Guests don't look out at the sea. They look down into it, through an eleven-metre panoramic window, at the seabed and whatever happens to be moving past it that day. It's closer to submersion than dining.
That became the creative direction. The colour palette drawn from the sea floor. Photography framed from above, looking down through the water. Typography and layout with the quiet weight of something submerged. Every visual decision rooted in that singular point of view.
The digital experience carried the same logic. The website and booking journey were designed to feel like a gradual descent, building anticipation rather than simply converting a transaction. A reservation at Under isn't like booking a table. It needed to feel like that from the first click.
Outcome
Under opened to the world in 2019 and became a phenomenon. It earned a Michelin star, appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and drew international attention on a scale that few restaurants ever reach. The architecture alone, a concrete monolith half-submerged on one of Norway's most exposed coastlines, made it impossible to ignore.
The identity gave all of that a visual language worthy of the place. Distinctive, considered, and entirely its own.
Reflection
It remains one of the most creatively fulfilling projects I've been part of, working alongside a client who wanted to go all the way and trusted us to get them there.