Foodpreneurs // Extras

We mocked up a vinyl display on the venue window which we piched to Food& as a possible application. We felt that it was important, even at this early stage, to consider the real world context of the brand and how it could be applied to the events. 

We also produced a simple flyer layout for the event:

Foodpreneurs // Development

After we had established the two design elements, we had to develop the final composition of the icons. We felt that it was important to give consideration to way that the colours were mixed. We liked the arrangement of changing colours by row, but felt that it is was much more visually interesting to mix the colours icon by icon:

We played around with moving the type to different parts of the grid, and found that it worked best when it sat above the icon grid.

We knew that the brand could be used at lots of different scales and formats, across print and digital. To make this format adapatable, andy worked on creating a grid structure that would avoid colour clashes and obvious duplication. 

Applied on a huge scale:

TBM Flag // Submission Boards and evaluation

I found creating a reimagined UK flag to be a much more challenging brief than I had initially expected. Flags have so much meaning and heritage that cannot be changed from their traditional formats, standards and colours that it becomes a really hard design challenge which produced both some really unusual solutions and some plain variations. The short deadline of the interim crit and submission hand-in made this even harder, and neither of us were particularly happy with the outcomes we had developed in the time-frame. I did however find it a really interesting challenge that required a lot of research and got me to consider audience and heritage in a completely different way to most briefs. For attempting this brief as a project, I think that if Scotland left the UK the flag would remain the same as patriotism, flags and icons mean so much and so many different things to different people that any new solution would meet huge criticism. It was interesting to see how many different solutions had been created in the class for this, and I feel that I have learnt just as much during this brief from other people's projects that were informed by different research and angles than I did from my own.

Foodpreneurs // Iconography

We were both keen on representing the variety of offerings available in street food through simple and varied iconography that could be used to create a dynamic brand suitable for the venue and audience. While I worked on the typography for the brand, Andy had research into icon grids and absolute geometric contructions. He found that by developing an icon grid, designers had a basis that ensured that designs could have visual consistency across a range of icons. We wanted to carry this level of sophistication and professionalism to our project and so Andy developed a icon grid and illustration style that we could use to produce our food icons.

This was the illustration style we chose to use for the icon set. Andy made initial icons and began to expand and develop the range to make them as visually consistent as possible.  

After I had finalised the typography I helped Andy by producing icons for the set in the same style. 

Here is some of my development:

These were the icons I contributed to the final set:

Combined we created a 36 icon set for the brand:

Foodpreneurs // Typography

The brief asked us to focus on clean typography as a core element of the brand. While Andy worked on creating an illustration style for the brand, I focussed on exploring options for appropriate type to form the Foodpreneur logo. As it would be used commercially, we had to balance licensing costs against other deciding factors.  Here were my favourite contenders:

Soleil is €50 or £29.62 for a print licence and available for $16.99 to host on web through fontdeck

This worked best in the thinner weights where it shares similarities with Avenir. 

Another possibility identified was Garage Gothic, which could be bought for $40 / £23.68 with a web licence for $20 a year. This worked best in capitals and had a chunky but runded feel that could fit the brand ideals. 

Sofia Pro uses an absolute geometric makeup which fits our aim to promote the friendly, humanistic aspect of the street food trade. It costs $35 or £20.72 for print

Brandon Grotesque is a fantastic font which is rounded but maintains strong and distinct characteristics. It costs $40 or £23.68, and $20 for an Adobe Typekit web licence. 

From here I began to play around with different options. I found that brandon grotesque worked really well in uppercase, and fit the collection of letterforms well.

I tried to find a way to introduce variations in colour but found that this wasn't really working. 

Here I tried to emphasise the network of food traders through connections that cross over the logo. 

However, I found that it worked best to really strip it back and use a neutral colour which could contrast the coloured logo. I used simple lines to accentuate food within the logo and imply a burger or sandwich. This felt like a more subtle approach appropriate to the brief. I experimented with different thicknesses, as too thick looked too much like a 'burger king' style of logo and too thin didn't sit well with the chunky type. 

After striking the right balance, I created a colour palette to use with the icons Andy had been working on. As street food is known for it's bright colours and flavours, I wanted this to be reflected in the brand colours we used. This came together really immediately and the neutral coloured type sat really effectively against the brighter colours. 

As the icons were so structured in their construction, having been created with an icon grid, I felt it would be best to organise them neatly in a regular form. Andy agreed, and after some development, we settled on a format that we both liked:

Foodpreneur // Points of reference

We sat down with the client and discussed a visual direction for the brand. These are examples of contextual references that were agreed. It was discussed that the brand should make use of clean typography and use supporting imagery to provide a friendly tone and character. The client liked subtle use of colour and favoured design that used simple shapes and constructions to create brand elements. 

We really liked the way that this simple, angular logo was contrasted with the looser coloured shapes. 

This project made really subtle use of colour and line to create an approachable brand

The simple, unordered shapes also made the brand look playful and inventive. This is the kind of approach we would be looking to take with this brief. 

Again, really simple typography is used for the logo, and looser, coloured illustrations have been used to give the brand it's flavour. 

This branding for open studio used subtle manipulation of the typography and used the salmon pink as a highlight colour to contrast the black and white core elements. 

This was our favorite example, as the simple characters fit the brand name so well and the one colour approach suits the outline stye of illustration. 

Foodpreneurs // Design Sprint

We started the brief using a one-day design sprint. I have used this methodology in one form or another for most of the briefs this year, and have found it to get more and more useful as a way of approaching design briefs without any assumed knowledge and ensuring that, within a collaboration, both designers have the same understanding about the audience and context for the design. I have found that this thorough research and concept development stage leads in turn to more effective design/development later in the project.

 We agreed that it would be best to use the sprint approach for the research stage of the project. This allowed to gain a stronger understanding of the context, audience and client expectations before we started the design stage. We started the day by going through the brief and outlining possible research areas, we then structured these into 5 minute research sprints. We wanted to primarily research into NorthernStrEats, successful street food startups, types of food, possible brand applications and ideas for associated imagery.

Northern StrEats:

'Norther StrEats is an organisation set up by food traders for food traders. We aim to provide a service, to push the word, to let event organisers know that the times they are a changin', that the Great British public are fed up of being served overpriced, rubbish food.'

The site gave a great introduction to what modern street food is, and does a really good job of creating excitement around this food in the North as much of the activity in street food has been centred around London. 

'Back in the day and not so long ago what did street food say to you? It said, kebab vans, burger vans, chip vans selling low quality, high priced food. It filled a hole, emptied pockets and most people who purchased came away feeling unsatisfied and cross with themselves for eating such rubbish. Local councils granted permissions to cater for what they thought was a requirement but due to rubbish, complaints and health worries those councils now take a dim view of street food traders. Say ‘street food trading’ to a councillor and their immediate thought is of the picture just painted.'

This quote really sums up the real change in commercial and consumer attitude towards Street Food. No longer is it about producing low quality food for the lowest price possible, now street food enthusiasts value fresh local ingredients and rich flavours and are not afraid to pay for them. Foodpreneurs needs to capture this kind of spirit as a brand. 

 NorthernStrEats also acts as a network group as they 'support each other, pass on work opportunities, negotiate pitch fees, organise street food events and keep in touch with festival organisers about their food offerings.' This makes it so important to a profession known for being friendly, adventurous and hard-working. 

Through our research, we identified these key qualities of street food traders that should be communicated in our brand:

Passionate about food

Source locally and sustainably 

Hard Working

Theatrical 

Specific

interact with the public

Work seasonally 

Some examples of the information that was found during this process:

-If you Google Street Food Traders UK, you will find 11,000,000 results

-2.5 billion people eat street food every day, with the most popular being Mexican Burritos. 

-The average cost of ‘street food’ is £4.25 per head, while the average cost of a restaurant meal is £18.45. 

Successful street vendors:

Fish&

Senor Churo 

El Kantina

Bundobust

Belgave Street Feast:

The Foodpreneur event will be held at Belgrave Music Hall and Canteen, a venue that has actively encouraged and supported the growth of street food in Leeds through it's rotating food residencies and the monthly 'street feast'. Our design should fit within the Belgrade aesthetic of clean typography and simple colours.

We ended the sprint with brainstorming rounds of ideas for street food associated imagery and possible extensions to the brief we could use to enhance the event in June:

Wrist bands

Projection - Animation

Window Vinyl 

Posters

Ticket 

Postcards

Lightbox

Laser Cut 

Baloons 

Banner

Viral Video