Northern Café Menu
Branding | Design
Goal: Create a logo and menu for an existing or fictional food-related company. The project focused on why we chose the colour scheme, the font style, and how we utilized the principles and elements of visual design. For this project, I chose my brother-in-law's, Raymond Mah, restaurant called “Northern Café and Grill”. You can view my logo on their site here!
Timeline
- Mar 2022: Created
- Oct 2022: Logo on Site
Software
- InDesign
Designs
- Logo, Menu
About Northern Café
Northern Café is a greasy spoon Western-Asian fusion diner which has been open since 2008. They're a family-run restaurant focused on family-first culture and emphasizes the use of fresh, made-from-scratch ingredients. Their target demographic are families of all ages, influencers and bloggers.
Brainstorming
Their philosophy is treating each customer like family, so I wanted to reflect that within the menu design. The aim was to modernize their current logo while still maintaining their values, and ensuring the design is classic and timeless.
With consideration to these facts, I spent time to brainstorm associated keywords/phrases and imagery for their logo design and colour scheme. I looked to visuals which referenced family, breakfast, café, tradition, diner, etc, and I looked to colours that would translate to love/warmth, hunger, happiness, which were reds, oranges, and yellows.
Logo Concept
Thumbnails were hand-sketched with thought toward the café's brand identity. From 20-30 thumbnails, 8 logo roughs were hand drawn and finalized to 1.
The Sun represents happiness/warmth and the morning; coffee represents the café and area to social and connect with others.
Colour Scheme
An analogous colour scheme was finalized for the logo and menu, using reds, oranges, and yellows. Regarding Frank Mahnke's colour psychology, reds and oranges stimulate appetite, and red itself is a passionate colour which reflects the passion and dedication of Northern Café. Yellow symbolizes happiness, warmth, and playfulness, which are the feelings of Northern Café and its patrons.
Menu Design
Sans Serif Futura PT font was the main typography choice. This font was timeless and matched the logo's simple vibe. Most importantly, it was easily readable and large enough for the elderly, as well as children, to read.
Logo Implementation
In October, 2022, I communicated with the client's designer to help implement the logo design on their menu and website! You can view it on their website here.