For many years, I’d been craving work that felt more tangible—made with my hands, on a smaller scale, rooted in genuine relationships, putting fingerprints onto the city I call home. I wanted to contribute to the neighborhood that shaped me from my mid-twenties to today: the Lower East Side.

Round K entered my life naturally. My fiancé became a regular, befriended the owner, and soon I found myself helping reimagine a place that had long been part of the neighborhood fabric.

Ochkyeon, the founder, is originally from Korea. He studied electrical engineering, but coffee led him into a completely different world—from cafés and competitions in Seoul to farms in Vietnam and plantations in Indonesia. He became a head barista in Florence, then studied at APICIUS International School of Hospitality in Italy before bringing his craft to New York. Round K opened in 2015 as a hub for coffee, curiosity, and community.

From the beginning, a few things were clear:

The LES has changed dramatically in the decade I’ve lived here. Before Dimes Square was a thing and trendy storefronts like Coming Soon or Le Gaz became tourist spots, there was the skate shop Labor, the artsy bar Beverly’s, and artists carving out life on the edges. Round K was a quiet local secret then. The kind of spot that you go to only “if you know you know.”

Even as the neighborhood evolves, it stays humble. Generations, cultures and languages overlap. Grandmas sunbathing on benches, toddlers chasing pigeons, skaters weaving through families, Chinese aunties and SVA students trading ping-pong shots at Seward Park. It’s chaotic, raw, layered, alive.

The visual landscape reflects that same energy—storefronts layered with Latin and Chinese Hanzi letterforms, hand-painted signs, symbols, illustrations, graffiti, and flyers. Nothing matches, yet everything belongs. A living collage always in flux.

That raw eclecticism shaped the identity.

The logo draws from two sources: the neighborhood’s visual rhythm and the shape of time. Round K transforms throughout the day—café by day, speakeasy by night—so I looked to the most universal symbol of that transition: the analog clock.

In the circle of the clock, I saw “Round.”
In the hands of the clock, I saw “K.”

There’s also a cultural meaning embedded within the name. In Korea, a “round” marks each stage of a night out—1차, 2차, 3차—moving from one venue to the next. Time measured not by clocks, but by experience. Round K follows that cadence—new energy as the hours turn.

From the clock came a set of symbols—icons inspired by the neighborhood’s visual noise. They act as secondary time-tellers. Individually, they feel like graphics you’d find walking down the LES. Together, they channel the neighborhood’s rhythm—never settling into one identity. 

The custom typeface extends that idea. It began with swirls and curves inspired by the movement inside a drink, then stretched and warped to capture the elasticity of time—how moments slow down or speed up depending on who you’re with.

Just as the Lower East Side refuses a single visual language, the identity is designed to move fluidly across different mediums. Brand elements were interpreted through textural shifts—from watercolor washes to 3D liquid forms.

That is the essence of Round K.

A café by day. A speakeasy by night. 
A bar, a gallery, a music platform, a pocha, a picnic. 
Always shifting. Always in motion.

There were challenges—a logo change mid-project, partnership transitions, a temporary closure and reopening—but the identity grew stronger by growing through the same changes as the space itself.

Round K will continue to evolve as the neighborhood does. 
A brand shaped by the city that surrounds it.

This project is my love letter to the Lower East Side—written in coffee, cocktails, music and time.