Finer Sounds

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A curated vinyl and audio goods shop in the Ace Hotel Brooklyn

David Azzoni and Shota Iyobe wanted to make good audio and audio goods more accessible. With a curated selection of vinyl, turntables, headphones and audio essentials, the point is to present customers with a few well-chosen and thoroughly vetted recommendations. The Ace in Brooklyn proved a perfect space to launch this new venture, which is both a cozy storefront and online store. The shop was designed to be inviting, friendly, and warm– to put customers at ease instead of overwhelming them with choice or by offering only elite, audiophile-tier selections.

Gretel came on board early, helping to conceive the brand identity as a charmingly awkward mix of accessible and aspirational. The brand is built to feel like an early sketch, a rough draft of something ‘fancy’ to be refined later.

A fine line
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At the core of the brand is a naive line. There’s a bit of a wink in the intentionally unrefined design language. We tried to envision what our younger selves might have doodled in a notebook if the brief were to illustrate ‘the finer things’. We wanted the whole ‘fancy’ brand to feel as if it were sketched with a Pilot Felt Tip pen.

Finer yet to come
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As the shop and brand grow, we’ve helped set the stage for expanded lines of merch, limited edition pressings, and an expanded digital footprint. Watch this space to see how it all unfolds.

Process: An open brief
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For our first round, we opened the brief up to the whole studio to contribute. Several designers took us up on it, and we presented all 11 routes. We wanted David to have a wide range of tone and sensibility, even as he was still developing the shop, the offering, and firming up the name and location.