MANGA / INTERNET CAFE
Background
A case study for the creation of a new cafe centered in Toronto called GG cafe catering towards anime and gaming youth.
Client: Self Directed
Started by a beginner entrepreneur with the vision of spreading what he loves and wants to create a space where a niche group of people can come together and hang out to have fun and eat / drink.
Demographics
The people we are looking at branding for are people between the ages of 15–30 with anything over that being somewhat outliers. The services and products sold at GG cafe will be coffee and other cafe foods like salad, breakfast items like pancakes and french toast and so on.
Evan our client was originally a student at humber collage who came to Toronto to start of his new business. He needed a designer for the job because he needed someone to brand his shop with a logo as well as other elements to distinguish his cafe from others in Toronto. He didn’t have any design knowledge and didn’t know where to start the branding process so he hired a designer on to design the entirety of his store.
Create a logo that represents the target market and incorporates the spirit of gaming. Create a name for the cafe that relates to the target market on a deep level. create social media advertisements as well as an application for GG cafe that contains information on the cafe. Create a uniform design as well as a menu design that fits the branding.
Research
What games are people playing and what will bring people into the store is the biggest question. Manga cafes in other countries were our inspiration as well as our reference to how to create a manga cafe with the additional elements of an internet cafe. Using other stores as reference we decided to hold tournaments and create a library element to the store. We looked at how the Starbucks app works as well as how we could implement a reward system into our application to get regular customers. We liked how marvel did their movie openings and used that as inspiration to create the uniform and menu branding for the cafe. There were some hiccups throughout the process like when trying to come up with a logo we were thinking of using a power symbol to represent a internet cafe. This idea was thrown out as it made the symbol hard to recognize as a G. We went back on this and got to our final logo because it is more legible as GG.
Challenges
We used the comic style branding to show literally what we have in our store as well as to add fun to our uniform and branding that the target audience would appreciate or even recognize. This can be seen in the uniform as well as the menu cover.
The nature of a comic or manga is black and white so we really play on these colours on our cups as well as the menu and app. We wanted to use imagery over typography because manga and gaming are very visual to begin with and we wanted to keep the brand close to what we are selling. We also wanted to keep the store fun but also make it look like it’s not a cheap experience which is also why we choose classy colours like black
and white. Another idea that wasn’t great was the main logo didn't work on a busy background. We had to create a second logo to fix this flaw and we did that simply by simplifying the logo to its basic outline which could be used anywhere there was a busy background.
Social media ads
Main purpose is to get people to try new releases in the store and to bring awareness to new products.
Table tents
Similar reason for the social media ads but more for when people sit down and can see a new product is available immediately after entering the store which increases product awareness.
The application design.
Evan designed the app to work like a game. The more you purchase the higher your level becomes and the more benefits you get for buying from the cafe. This gives gamers a familiar yet addicting application which they will love to use. I got inspiration from the Starbucks application as well as the Tim- Hortons roll up the rim event. The cafe hosts gaming tournaments and anime events like knowledge based contents. The app also has a menu page to see what GG sells as well as further info on the foods like ingredients and pricing.
Solution
Satisfaction was gained because we managed to get all the elements created as well as hitting the target market. We were able to create a logo, social media advertisements, uniform design and a branded pattern that fits the cafes business. A very fun project to work on which was challenging when considering how to create a fun and inviting app as well as create a logo which represented the audience we were marketing towards.
A quote from the client:
“Evan invested hours into helping to create our brand. It was up to Evan to create our brand from a rough idea into a final product. He was able to nail the target audience and brand my store in a way that my customers will understand and love.”