Creative Studio
The Woo Woo
Client
PMAC's Hospitality
Year
2022
Services
→ Brand Identity Design & Development
→ Interior Styling & Art Direction
→ Website & Digital Design
→ Menu & Print Design
→ Sex Store Sourcing & Merchandising
→ Copywriting & Content Management
→ Exterior Styling
→ Photo Booth Design
→ Record Wall Installation
Location
Times Square, New York City
Links
The Woo Woo Website
The Woo Woo Instagram
Collaborators
→ Graffiti Staircase Painting by Brandon Cruz - https://www.cruzerart.com
→ Neon Build & Install by Let There Be Neon - https://lettherebeneon.com
→ Opening Website Coded by Abe Silva
Brand Design Case Study
Hidden beneath The Mean Fiddler, The Woo Woo is NYC’s first adult-store speakeasy — a playful nod to the gritty, sexy underbelly of 1980s Times Square, reimagined through today’s lens of openness and fluidity. Guests enter through a winding graffiti staircase (created in collaboration with artist Brandon Cruz) before arriving at a retro-inspired sex shop fully stocked with authentic vintage magazines, videos, and curiosities designed to spark conversation and blushes. Behind a red velvet curtain, a VCR-lined bookcase portal buzzes open, transporting guests into a cocktail lounge where nostalgia and seduction collide.
For this project, I shaped every layer of the brand and environment:
→ Brand Identity Design & Development — logo suite, typography, icon design, and a bold visual system that balanced retro grit with modern playfulness.
→ Interior Styling & Art Direction — from neon accents to curated wall treatments, ensuring the atmosphere evoked 1980s Times Square sleaze with a polished twist.
→ Website & Menu Design — digital and print experiences that echoed the brand’s sultry, underground vibe.
→ Sex Store Sourcing & Merchandising — hand-selecting authentic vintage items and display pieces to transform the entryway into an immersive experience that honored the history of the time yet represented all types of humans today.
→ Copywriting & Content Management — playful, provocative language woven throughout menus, signage, and digital channels including a sexual freedom manifesto and news articles for the menu.
→Exterior Styling — subtle street-level cues that set the tone while maintaining the speakeasy mystique.
The result is a transportive venue that blurs the line between nightlife, nostalgia, and art installation — an experience that delights, shocks, and lingers long after the night ends.
Primary Logo
Secondary Logos
The Challenge
PMAC's Hospitality came to Autumn Mishler Creative Studio with an open brief. The only creative reference point was a single point of inspiration: HBO's The Deuce, set in the grit and neon of Times Square's adult-entertainment era.
From that one thread, the challenge became building an entire concept from scratch: identity, language, atmosphere, and object design, all invented rather than briefed. The result was NYC's first adult-store speakeasy — a concept Autumn originated and then carried solo through every stage of execution.
The Opportunity
The deeper challenge was responsibility. The era The Deuce draws from was not just gritty and glamorous; it was marked by the HIV/AIDS crisis, violence against sex workers, racism, and real human loss. Autumn didn't want to borrow the aesthetic of that time while ignoring what it cost the people who lived through it, and she didn't want to sanitize it into something palatable for consumption either. Choosing the sex-store front as the speakeasy concept was a way to lean directly into that tension rather than soften it. She penned the sexual freedom manifesto and concept articles she wrote for the space became a way to name what the era's nostalgia so often leaves out: the lives lost to HIV, and the people who lived loudly and visibly at a time when doing so carried real risk.
A newspaper print menu with custom cocktail iconography, food menu "classifieds" section and articles detailing the bars theme and concept.
The Sexual Freedom Manifesto was written to be clear The Woo Woo celebrates sexual freedom rather than exploiting or trivializing that history.
Cheeky 45 records were printed with a custom label design to serve lines of powdered sugar alongside the signature Woo Woo shot. [ Labeled as 47 RPM as a nod for the bar's location on 47th St ]
Custom designed show posters inspired by the 1980's era, filled with easter eggs for the client's sister bars, were wheat pasted alongside Brandon Cruz's graffiti art and authentic posters from the era.
Unique photo booth posters created in partnership with Photomatica Photo Booth Company to mimic a cassette tape type design
NYC's First [& Only]
Adult-Store Speakeasy
Since opening, The Woo Woo has become a certified phenomenon. The first six months after opening drew a line out the door and has built a devoted following of nearly 60K on Instagram. The concept has proven to resonate far beyond a single night out, turning into a viral favorite that guests actively sought out and shared, cementing the brand's identity as one of NYC's most talked-about nightlife destinations.
Visual Merchandising of Adult Store Speakeasy Entrance & Custom Neon Sign
Hidden Bookshelf Entrance Stocked with 1980's VHS Porn Tapes & Collaged with Photo Strips
Custom Neon Sign Designed
in partnership with Let There Be Neon
Art Direction of Conceptual Photoshoot
in partnership with Josh Sells Photography
Visual Merchandising and Product Sourcing of Authentic Adult-Store Items from the Era
Project 02
Winding Graffiti Staircase at the Entrance in Partnership with Brandon Cruz
The launch website was designed as a fully interactive 1980s desktop screen, complete with responsive icons, a working start bar menu, and draggable windows guests could rearrange, turning the browser itself into an extension of the retro world. Coded by Abe Silva.
Vinyl Wall Installation Beneath the DJ Booth with Branded 45's Included
WHAT GUESTS SAY
“A Nostalgic Gem with Top-Tier Food & Vibes!! Walking into this 80s-themed speakeasy felt like stepping straight into a time capsule— in the best possible way. From the moment we found the hidden entrance, we knew we were in for something special.”
Heather T, Google Review
WHAT GUESTS SAY
“I'm honestly speechless. I've been to many speakeasy bars across the city, but this one is by far the best l've ever experienced. The atmosphere is absolutely incredible - as someone born in the '80s, the vibe felt like pure magic, just wow, wow.”
Kasia M, Google Review
WHAT GUESTS SAY
“Endorsements from real customers lend a personal touch to the website and can go a long way...”
WHAT GUESTS SAY