Meet the Designers Behind All of Your Favorite Restaurants
Hello. We’re the design team behind BentoBox. Allow us to introduce ourselves.
AJ Camara — Design Director
Resident BBQ connoisseur, horror movie junkie, and former comic-book-obsessed kid. When I’m not out shredding the streets in an obnoxious muscle car, I get my hands dirty in some good ‘ol graphic design and web development. Here at BentoBox I focus on exhibiting hospitality in the form of problem-solving design-thinking to ensure an exemplary customer experience.
What inspires your thinking about design? What gets you most excited to create?
My design thinking is inspired by my lifelong involvement in a variety of art forms, my experience dealing with a multitude of design platforms and tools, and my desire to help people solve problems. I get most excited to see my creations make someone’s life easier or more enjoyable. ART is creating for yourself while DESIGN is creating for others.
One font you use in your project very often.
For the past few months I’ve been using our new brand font “Circular” every single day in experimenting with it across all of our assets and collateral. I’ve gotten to know the font pretty well to the point that it is second nature to identify it out in the wild by its distinguished characteristics, despite it looking just like your everyday geometric, sans-serif typeface.
Describe your choice of food.
I could eat American BBQ every single day of the week and not get sick of it! Juicy, tender, smoked meat smothered in barbecue sauce and sprinkled with sea salt just never gets old. Brisket or ribs paired with some baked mac & cheese, candied yams, and honey butter biscuits, would be my last meal on death row.
Favorite Restaurant website?
I love the way the site I did for ilili came out. I think it flows elegantly, remains minimal while having a touch of flare, and delivers the restaurant’s message in a powerful way. It was one of my projects that had very little pushback from the customer, so I was able to carry out my initial vision, which always results in my best work.
James Coviello — Junior Designer
I majored in design at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where I also completed a minor in music technology. Growing up I worked in a pizzeria, a yogurt shop, and a deli, so I’ve been involved in the restaurant industry for most of my “adult” life. Some fun facts about me are that I have a twin sister, I play guitar, ukulele, piano, and I spend my summers in Long Beach Island.
Zodiac Sign?
An outgoing Fire sign, Sagittarius is sophisticated and intellectual — at least until they find the keys to the minibar.
What is your motto in life?
My life motto is a phrase that makes my friends roll their eyes but under its surface it makes some important points. Feeling good, looking better — implies that:
(a) You are experiencing happiness by not letting every little thing get you down, something that is important when taking on projects and interacting with customers and co-workers
(b) You are confident, a lack of confidence leads to a fear of failure. To succeed you need the confidence to take risks on projects in order to move up the company ladder and build an impressive portfolio.
Make a five song playlist.
How to Start a Sing-Along:
- Mr. Brightside — The Killers
- Sugar We’re Going Down Swinging — Fallout Boy
- Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous — Good Charlotte
- Ocean Avenue — Yellowcard
- Shut up and Dance — Walk the Moon
One font you use in your project very often.
I often find myself using Futura in my personal projects because I think my style is reflective of the pop art era. Although, Futura was created in the late 1920s, the fact that it is sans-serif and sleek helps it not to clash with the bright colors I incorporate in my designs.
Kayla Scheidel — Visual Designer
Hey, I’m Kayla Scheidel. A designing, meal prepping, murderino on the BentoBox design squad.
Zodiac Sign?
Virgo
“Virgo is ruled by Mercury, the god of communication, which means that their urge for privacy and introspection doesn’t override their desire to communicate. Virgos are critical perfectionists — think Beyoncé, a Virgo who is famously flawless.” — Broadly
Sun in Virgo Moon in Aries Rising in Gemini
Make a five song playlist.
What I would play if I owned a coffeehouse.
- Sit Next to Me — Foster The People
- G Train — Third Story
- Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked — Cage The Elephant
- Consideration — Rhianna, SZA
- The Girl — City and Colour
One font you use in your project often.
I find myself using Brandon Grotesque for a lot of my projects. It’s a clean, geometric sans-serif with a lot of varieties in weights, allowing for flexibility when applying it to a design. I typically like to use it in all caps for headers.
Favorite Restaurant Website?
This is really hard, because there are so many sites that I love, but if I had to choose one that I find inspiration from daily it would be Ellington’s. This site is very simple and classic, but manages to have so much character packed into it. The use and placement of illustrations, retro overlays, and subtle borders, pair great with the mid-century color palette and simple san-serif font. The site not only feels warm and inviting but elevated and unique. Overall, I find it to be a great site to refer to when needing ideas on how to balance multiple design elements.
ig: @kaylascheidel
Lily Tran — Product Designer
Hi, I’m Lily, the Constance Wu (Tiger Mom) of the BentoBox Design family.
Zodiac Sign?
Cancer
Moon Child
Sun in Cancer, Moon in Cancer, Rising in Capricorn.
What is your motto in life?
If it happens, it happens.
Describe your choice of food.
Usually I have a hard time answering this question… but this time, I traveled back in time.
I was around 8–10 years old and my parents took us to a family’s friend Vietnamese Restaurant in NYC’s Chinatown. I get my usual: Bo Luc Lac (Shaking Beef) which is made of beef cubes, tomatoes, lettuce, sauteed onions, and rice. Is that my choice of food? No, but it was the way I ate it. By that I mean, I would grab: 1 piece of beef, 1 lettuce, 1 tomato, 1 sauteed onion, some rice and attempt to put it all on a spoon. You can say I was playing with my food but this was the only way I’d eat this meal to this day. I found the combination of everything in one bite to be the best way to eat it. The only issue, it takes me about a hour+ to finish it.
This influenced my choice of food which are ones that allow a lot of interaction/customization such as:
Ssams (Korean wraps)
Gỏi cuốn (Vietnamese summer rolls)
Banh Xeo (Vietnamese Savory Pancakes)
Hot Pot
and especially ALL YOU CAN EAT
Make a five song playlist.
- Aruarian Dance — Nujabes
- Scale it Back — DJ Shadow, Little Dragon
- The Rip Tide — Beirut
- Letting Go — potsu
- So Many Details — Toro Y Moi
ig: @LilyTran__
Marcus Washington Jr. — Senior Designer
A Parsons School of Design alumni with having studied abroad at Central Saint Martins in London. My goal in life is to out cook an ahjumma, we can consider having been to Korea three times my training.
Zodiac Sign?
🌞Scorpio 👆🏽Capricorn 🌚Scorpio.
“An intense and emotional Water sign. They make excellent spies
and therapists due to their seemingly supernatural ability to see beneath the surface. Scorpio is also tied to the phoenix, a symbol of death and rebirth. A Scorpio’s journey is filled with evolutions and transformations.” — taken from Broadly and other horoscope sites. 🦂
Make a five song playlist.
Soft and soulful vibes. If I had to give this playlist a name it would be called Warm Biscuits ~
- Why — Hoody ft George
- All to You — Sabrina Claudio
- Orange Moon — Erykah Badu
- Flow — Sade
- Honeywheat — VanJess
Choose your choice of Food.
It might be easier to direct this question to a specific restaurant, which would be Sigol Bapsang in Seoul. My god. The endless amounts of banchan and only for about $8 USD! That being said, Korean food is definitely my choice of food with southern food competing for the number one spot.
What inspires your thinking about design? What gets you most excited to create?
Creating, renewing, and adapting natural flows for digital platforms is highly intriguing to me. The idea that human behavior has organically shifted throughout the years to understanding and making sense of an empty space seems almost unreal. Designing out and molding a person’s experience on the “ever so revolutionary WWW” and progressively filling up that empty space feels almost empowering. To know you are not only solving problems but helping in the continuation of such a unique space is thrilling and almost ethereal.
ig: @mwashjr
food ig: @fallingoffthebone
Stacy Krokha — Junior Designer
Self-taught designer and artist. Alter-ego: Anastasiya. Proud mother of 5 cats. Local scene queen turned rap queen. 10/10 would recommend to be friends with her.
Zodiac Sign?
Libra
Rising Virgo
Capricorn moon
“You do what you say and can get a lot done.” — Co-Star
What is your motto in life?
A Tiger Doesn’t Lose Sleep Over The Opinion Of Sheep.
Five song playlist.
Five Phases of Stacy
- Drown — Bring Me The Horizon
- Homecoming — Kanye West
- Car Radio — Twenty One Pilots
- Морская капуста — Мумий Тролль
- Bonfire — Childish Gambino
Favorite Restaurant website?
My favorite restaurant website is Fox in the Snow. I am very drawn to their minimalist aesthetic. The site is very clean in terms of design and has a chic mood. I like the fact that the site is mainly white and allows for their imagery to tell their story. I use this website a lot for inspiration.
ig: @stacykrokha
design ig: @AKROdesigns
