Tasks

1-week branding project:

At this stage in the module, you are familiar with all the stages of branding and identity design. To practice your new skills (and as a recap) I want you to design an identity for something else. This will allow you to explore a brand that you can take an objective view of. You can choose an existing brand or come up with your own name.

• It is up to you what personality you
  give it. Will it be fun and exciting?
  Gourmet and high-end? Quality
  focused? Experience focused?
• Start with researching the area,
  benchmarking competitors and other
  brands that your desired user base will
  use or relate to.
• Establish a tone of voice, brand bank of
  words and a story.
• Choose an appropriate typeface for the
  logo and an additional one for a copy (if
  necessary).
• Design a symbol in the form of an image
  or monogram.

What Brand:

There is a local pizza brand called “Nicos Pizza” I’ve always enjoyed the food they serve. However, I feel their branding doesn’t represent their food well and the high-end experience they offer.

Research:

For this, I looked at other brands seen in Belfast that were the style in which id like to present my brand in.

Neills Hill

Neills Hill is a local high-end restaurant that offers an intimate and exclusive dining experience using local and sustainably sourced products. They’ve come above other competition due to their attention to detail and the consistently high standard of food they produce and serve along with the atmosphere that comes with it.

They describe themselves as:

Neill’s Hill is a neighborhood restaurant nestled in the heart of Belfast’s Ballyhackamore Village and has been the heart and soul of this area for over 20 years. With a relaxed style and open feel during the day, as night sets you enter a charming, casual, fun-style Brasserie. The restaurant has a modish style with artwork from local illustrator Peter Strain on the walls – a popular talking point. Our kitchen team, led by exec chef Cath Gradwells delivers a classic neighborhood restaurant menu with small plates, local cuts, fresh fish, a dedicated vegan menu as well as our great value mid-week set menu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keywords:

• neighborhood
• heart and soul
• relaxed
• open
• charming
• casual
• fun-style
• local
• popular talking point
• classic neighborhood menu

Their logo allows for the food to speak for itself, they use white font on grey background reflecting the atmosphere inside the restaurant.

OX

Ox is a High-end Michelin Star restaurant nestled in the center of Belfast in a small but aesthetic building. They offer a full experience with everything set to perfection. They offer a level of dining unachieved by anywhere else in Northern Ireland and continue to rank highly among the top European restaurants.

They describe themselves as:

The seasons are set as nature intended, imagination and creativity help bring them to life. With an enthusiastic approach to seasonality, OX works every day to bring you the best possible dining experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keywords:

• seasons
• nature
• imagination
• creativity
• enthusiastic approached to seasonality
• every day
• best possible dining

 

Ox’s logo is simple clean and professional. The choice of setting it on a cream background in comparison to Neills Hill reflects the atmosphere when dining and the space in which they are in, with a huge open window with a clean designer interior.

The tone of Voice:

The Story

Starting from humble beginnings in the back of our grandma’s kitchen we developed and honed in on our cooking skills and decided to open Nico’s Kitchen. Here at Nico’s, we aim to offer a quality personal Italian cuisine dining experience.

Word/Phrase Bank

“Fresh”, “Authentic”, “Passionate”, “Organic”, “Healthy”, “Homemade”, “Sustainable”, “Exclusive”, “High-end”, “Italian”, “Honest”, “Personal”, “Intimate”, “Handmade”,
“Locally Sourced”, “Professional”, “Premium”, “European”, “Traditional”

 

Logo

Had to include pizza but I wanted to reflect the professionalism and not overcomplicate it. Like the other brands, I looked at I thought id create a monotone logo allowing it to be on black and white.

 

I settled on this design as I found it cleaner and more legible than some of the others. I definitely think it conveys its message better on black but I think both works well. For the font I wanted to chose something professional and modern, however, when I scanned some newer fonts I found that the capitalization on them wasn’t what I was looking for. I then later realized that Futura had a great set of Capitalized Characters and decided to use it. Changing the weight and swapping the apostrophe for one I created myself to match the font better.

Physical TouchPoint:

For the Physical TouchPoint I thought it was only fair to use a pizza box to display the logo, in this instance I made a conscious decision to have the logo on white as it becomes more legible for branding alongside the fact that white boxes are more commonly manufactured and printed.

Digital TouchPoint

For the digital touchpoint, I thought id recreate a menu on an app. When doing this I remembered the website of the ox that I saw and how they utilized images of their restaurant in the background so I thought I would do this.

 

I Really Enjoyed this task and found it really fun. it was interesting looking at other brands and seeing how the differences in what they affect how they brand themselves and the changes that make to small things such as color pallet and fonts.