Zach McCurdy, Creative Director of Bareburger: A Crash Course in Building a Restaurant Brand
In a city where there are over 26,000 restaurants—enough that you’d be able to eat at a different restaurant for every meal for 22.5 years straight— it’s important to have a restaurant brand that fully supports its vision and personality.
Building your restaurant from the “brand-up” is a great way to influence all of the big picture and small detail work it takes to launch in this crowded city of food. The numbers mentioned above may feel daunting and discouraging but the challenge is beatable, and isn’t as much of a David vs. Goliath battle as it may seem. Let’s break down some of the main steps to building a successful restaurant brand.
Lesson 1: Farm-grown Research, accented with a wedge of Research
At this stage it’s like giving your seedlings those first drops of water to grow into the beautiful crop it’s going to be. At the start of my research, I stay away from design gallery-style sites and focus instead on the idea behind the brand.
When you first meet with the client/restauranteur, they may bring their ideas to you in a state that is jumbled and probably a little muddled. Listen to the words they are repeating and emphasizing. These are the words that will help you build the story of who this restaurant is.
Research starts with listening and understanding followed by a deep dive into the books and history. I am a strong believer that history defines the present, so I start by using those keywords that were emphasized in the initial meeting and look back in time at how people previously handled them; for example, the word “farm-fresh”. Each step you take in working back to the present day, and thus the brand, you have the opportunity to influence the brand you’re building.
As the story gets defined and the vision gets clearer I move on to the design aspect of the brand (logo direction, colors, assets). All of these are the front facing elements of who this restaurant will be, so it’s important to have all that story behind it. For this part of the research I look to designers that inspire me (shoutout to Alexander Girard and his timeless body of work). I look to designers first over Pinterest, Behance, etc., due to the fact I initially don’t want my design to be driven too heavily by trends. After this stage of research is where you really start to get your hands covered in graphite. With that let’s move on to our second lesson…
Lesson 2: Freshly-ground Logo with a side of Attitude & Voice
Here’s where we take all the important research and start boiling it down into something visual and concrete. A logo is the leader of the brand, the asset that drives the look and feel of all things about the brand—this is why the research behind it is so vital. When you look at a logo it should immediately answer a few questions, some being: “What kind of food can I expect here?” “Is this one of those fancy places or can I just grab & go?”. From this logo we build out a library of assets that support and push the vision and voice of the brand.
Research should drive everything you create for your brand.
Lesson 3: A pu pu platter of icons, illustrations & more
For the third and final lesson we’ll talk about taking the logo and breaking it down into a library of assets that can be used individually as well as in unison with the logo. These assets help to strengthen all of your branding collateral, like business cards, website design, posters, and especially the menu. While these assets tend to be developed at the end, they are the support that really helps push your brand forward and become strong. That research you did looking back at the history of design/copy/illustration is a great way to look into how to build these out. This library of assets can be expanded into the tone and voice of the brand. How do we want the brand to speak and talk? Is it elegant? Is it more of a street-style brand? The voice should blend and make sense with the illustrations and icons you’re building out. While for the most part they should be able to stand alone, they should also be able to play nice with each other.
A restaurant is more than just branding, but its branding is what helps define the feeling and give voice to the already incredible food and concept. A concrete brand for a restaurant can act as a sort of guiding light that influences a lot of the decisions you make, making your dream of opening up your restaurant a little bit easier and seamless.
Zach McCurdy is the Creative Director of Bareburger. For the perfect online ordering experience, visit bareburger.com.
