Douglas Riccardi
Douglas Riccardi is the owner and Creative Director of Memo, a Manhattan-based design agency specializing in branding and marketing collateral for a number of hospitality, corporate, and retail clients. Before founding Memo in 1993, Douglas worked at Anspach Grossman Portugal, the renowned M&Co., Forbes, Inc., Benetton SpA (Treviso, Italy), and Sottsass Associati (Milan, Italy). His portfolio includes magazines, annual reports, brand identities, and communications, product design, packaging, and a full-size working prototype for a new store model.
Memo has worked with Mario Batali since he had one small restaurant on Cornelia Street. For Batali and B&B Hospitality Group, Memo has designed twelve best-selling cookbooks, nine restaurant identities on two continents, two retail stores, fourteen web sites, and numerous projects for his Brand team and Foundation.
Memo served as Creative Director for the renowned Restaurant Florent from 1993 to its closing in 2008, and continues to provide creative direction for Florent Morellet on his personal and professional ventures. Other clients include Los Angeles chef Michael Cimarusti, Top Chef alumnus Stephen Asprinio, Schnipper’s Restaurant Group, Loews Hotels, and Definitions Private Training Gyms.
In addition to lecturing frequently on restaurant branding, Riccardi teaches typography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He has also taught at Cooper Union, Parson’s School of Design, the Hunter College Graduate School of Interactive Media Arts, and the New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and has been a visiting critic and lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University.
An avid cook and gardener, Riccardi also studies piano with Mary Jo Pagano and is a choral singer. With the Oratorio Society of NY, he regularly performs at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.
