RA Sushi was searching for a new advertising agency, and Loomis tasked me with designing the RFP presentation piece meant to win the account.

The Challenge

The RFP needed to do more than list capabilities; it needed to feel like the RA Sushi brand before a single word was read. That meant designing something tactile and memorable enough to stand out in a stack of agency pitches, while staying grounded in the restaurant's own identity.

My Role & Process

As sole designer on the piece, I drew on my own experience living in Japan to build the RFP around authentic Japanese cultural elements rather than generic sushi-restaurant clichés: a bento box structure, chopsticks, furoshiki cloth wrapping, and a Daruma doll motif. The chopstick cover doubled as the title card, featuring the character 互 (meaning "together" or "mutual") — a small, deliberate nod to the agency-client partnership being pitched. Inside, the book itself was hand-stitched, and the color palette (black, red, bright green) was pulled directly from RA Sushi's own restaurant interior, so the piece felt like an extension of the brand rather than an outside pitch.

Result

Loomis didn't win the account, but RA Sushi's team specifically called out the RFP presentation as a highlight, telling Loomis they were thoroughly impressed by it. For a pitch that lives or dies on first impressions, that's a strong signal that the physical design did its job, even when the broader business outcome didn't land.