Launched in 2024, Belmont Park Village is an ambitious new luxury shopping destination set on the historic grounds of New York’s Belmont Park, the iconic site where Secretariat won the Triple Crown and the Wright Brothers once demonstrated flight. Styled as a true, walkable village – much more than just a retail experience – it brings together high-fashion shopping, hospitality, and dining in a setting full of charm and authentic character.

To launch this new experience, we focused on placemaking – imagining the Village not as a “new" development, but one that had evolved over time, alive with its own history, character, and charm. We then brought that idea to life through a campaign featuring droll illustrations of quirky village characters in everyday scenes, signaling a richer, more textured, more engaging experience could be found at a typical luxury shopping center.

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The shopping center, reimagined

Belmont Park Village

Founded by two craft beer-loving friends who saw an opportunity for the category to grow beyond its male-dominated clichés, Talea created an instant hit with unique, fruit-forward IPAs that connected with both beer nerds and wine drinkers alike.

Love & War was hired to help transform the brand’s equally refreshing, bright labels into the first retail experience — a flagship brewery-and-taproom in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. By designing a colorful and “graphic” approach to interiors and fun ways to incorporate the brand through signage, merch and the serving experience, Love & War was able to help Talea turn its first experiential location into a hit in its own right. 

Since opening, Talea has expanded to three more locations in NYC and can now be found in thousands of retailers, bars and restaurants.

Flagship retail for a breakout brewer

Talea Beer Co

Toby’s Estate – an Australian coffee brand with a significant global presence – had been operating multiple stores in New York. However, ownership felt the brand’s Australian backstory and “mass market” perception was not resonating with local NYC audiences and was out of step with the hyperlocal, Brooklyn-inspired, boutique experience it delivered.

Rather than an incremental change or light brand refresh, the solution Love & War developed with ownership was to abandon Toby’s entirely and create new brand from scratch. The result was Partners Coffee Roasters – a brand that spoke to local roots and signaled a personal commitment to all who the company relied on for success, from growers and sourcers to distributors, customers and the local community. In addition to the brand strategy, name and identity design, Love & War developed the product packaging, retail signage, uniforms, and other key touchpoints.

A retail and packaging icon

Partners Coffee

With the rapid growth of craft beer, it has become increasingly challenging for legacy brands like Hoegaarden to stand out. At the time of our engagement, Hoegaarden was positioning itself as a free-spirited, bohemian choice. However, the brand was being squeezed between mass-market standbys and boutique craft options, struggling to carve out a distinct identity.

To address this, Love & War partnered with AB InBev to create what would become the ultimate expression of the Hoegaarden brand: the Hoegaarden Greenhouse. This permanent physical concept, now rolling out across Europe and Asia, serves as the brand’s “spiritual home” - providing an immersive consumer experience that brings Hoegaarden’s identity to life, connecting with audiences on a deeper level and solidifying its position as a uniquely inspired choice.

A spiritual home for a global brand

Hoegaarden

Having developed the branding for UBS Arena—the new home of the New York Islanders—we set out to make the arena’s team store and merchandise as groundbreaking as the arena experience. The goal was to go beyond the typical NHL team shop and create a true cultural statement: youthful, hip, and setting a new standard for fan merchandise and engagement.

Our solution was to reimagine the store as a fashion-forward boutique, featuring collaborations with name designers, stylish reimaginings of Islanders branding, throwback gear, and irreverent merchandise that captured the spirit of the fanbase. Along with developing the concept, naming, and branding, we also oversaw the launch of the retail website. The result was a cultural phenomenon that resonated far beyond traditional hockey fans, cementing the Islanders’ position as trailblazers in the NHL.

Merchandise as a cultural statement

NY Islanders: Isles Lab

 & War teamed up with two-time James Beard Award-winning chef 

 and NoHo Hospitality to develop the branding for Mister Dips—a hamburger, beer, and ice cream stand built into a vintage Airstream on the elevated green space at The William Vale Hotel in Brooklyn.

Given the Airstream venue, it would’ve been easy to go retro, but we took a different path. Our branding, which included the visual identity, materials, signage, and Airstream design, draws inspiration from a range of subcultures including LSD graphics, D-listers, op-art, and other influences. The result is a playful, subversive, “Shake Shack on acid” mash-up of classic American tropes.

Shake Shack on acid

Mister Dips

Halifax’s waterfront offers a striking yet unconventional setting for an ice cream shop. Unlike other sun-soaked destinations, the city is often shrouded in fog and marked by cool, moody weather. The challenge was to create a brand that would not only thrive in this less traditional setting for ice cream but also turn these atmospheric quirks into an advantage.

The result of our work was The Fog Company, a whimsical brand based on an absurdist narrative of fog as a “local resource” complete with an annual harvest. In addition to the naming and concept, Love & War developed the identity design, materials, and interior design direction. The concept also directly influenced the menu, with signature offerings like “fog cones” enveloped in spun-to-order cotton candy, and unusual toppings inspired by Halifax’s maritime setting.

Retail & packaged goods