Hereabouts - Case Study
School project, 2021
ADCC 2021 Student Competition - Graphic Design (Gold)
Background
Hereabouts is a fictional, Vancouver-based restaurant that sources 95% of ingredients locally. They believe in the importance of eating locally and its benefits for the environment, economy, and the consumer. They develop relationships with the farmers from whom they source their ingredients and embrace the farm to table mentality. Hereabouts is a place where customers can trust where their food came from and connect with the story behind each plate. In today’s society of fast food and grocery delivery, Hereabouts wants to nurture and grow the connection between people and the food they eat.
The audience for Hereabouts is younger, between 20 and 35. They value authenticity and are willing to pay more for products that offer them that. They care about the environment and ethics play a significant role in their decisions, including purchasing decisions. They are foodies who are always looking to try new restaurants and dishes and who love the way food brings people together.
The Hereabouts brand character is fun, compassionate, energetic, and cool. They care about the world around them but they don’t take themselves too seriously.
Process
My process began with research. I explored existing restaurant branding and style. I sketched out logo ideas and illustration styles, trying multiple before deciding on one.
Solution
The Hereabouts logo uses a location pin icon to create a radish combined with a wide, bold, youthful typeface in a limited but fresh and fun colour palette. It’s quirky but clear, straightforward but fun.
The branding includes fun, simple, geometric illustrations that use simple icons and patterns to create a customizable, grid-like graphic. These illustrations are used heavily on the print menu to complement the type, along with other visual elements like dotted and wavy lines. The overall feel with the illustrations and type is modern and fun but the use of those elements hints at vintage menu design.
The website and mobile menu uses vivid, top-down photography of dishes to showcase the food and complement the logo and typography. The digital menu includes an interactive element that allows customers to see what farm ingredients are sourced from, including the distance the food traveled to get there, which adds value by highlighting the freshness of the dish.
This same concept is used in the social media campaign, which gives details about the ingredients that customers may not have known to wonder about but show a bit of the story behind the food and offers another level of authenticity to the brand.
I also created some signage used to ensure all customers can have a save experience during covid, including social distancing signage and QR code stickers on tables to eliminate the need for print menus during this time. Finally, I designed a coaster for use in the restaurant.
Takeaways