What Is the Secret to a Successful Restaurant Logo?
Restaurant Logo’s.
It’s extremely exciting to launch a new venture like a restaurant or a Pop up. Maybe you’re a seasoned restaurateur or chef, or maybe this is your first outing turning your dream into a reality.
I’m sure you will be aiming to create a buzz and add a little something extra to the lives of your local community, with a touch of spice from your dishes. But don’t let the excitement prevent you from ignoring the most important steps that will determine the success of your business.
You are probably spending a lot of time in the kitchen trying to perfect the menu but if you don’t have anyone to serve that food to, your taste testing will be for nothing. With that in mind, how much time have you spent on fine-tuning your marketing, your brand, and your restaurant logo?
We have compiled a list of the most important tips for a restaurant logo design here, this is a little cheat sheet that you can follow to aide you in the process.
The Guide
Certain guidelines will always apply no matter what type of restaurant or business you choose to open. Start with these simple steps as your foundation.
Research, Preview and Review
There are lots of examples of restaurants that do branding well, but there are even more that do it wrong. Think of all the places you may have been to over the last couple of years, remember the ones that left a memorable experience, and then the ones that didn’t. You may have an idea of what you want your logo to look like, but if you haven’t you have probably seen some nice ones in your travels.
In the modern world that majority of people have the use of the internet, so instead of having to travel to a venue or store to have a look, spend a bit of time online researching your favourite venues or brands to get a feel of how they use their Logos across their website and social media.
When you have found some cool brands copy them down, look at their type face, look at the colour palate, look at the way they utilise their brand across all of their channels. This research will allow you gain an idea of what works and what doesn’t, or what you like and what you don’t.
Mood board Creation for Inspiration
Here at Citizen, we always work to a mood board, getting ideas down on paper or digitally always allows you to visualise your ideas and may help you focus. You may like to work with pen and paper, collecting article cut outs of your favourite magazines, newspapers or you may have some cool photos that you can stick to a board and create your inspiration that way. Or alternatively you could use platforms such as www.pinterst.com to create a digital mood board. Using a platform like Pinterest is good as it has a built-in search function, it allows you to research similar styles of visuals to what you like. It is also very easy to share your work with friends, family or team and get feedback on your boards. You can invite guests to edit and add their thoughts to the board developing your research.
Whichever way you choose to work, this first step is imperative to enable you to focus and harness your’e creative direction.
Designing the Logo
We would always recommend using a trained graphic designer or branding specialist to design your logo and further branding assets, but if your budget is restricted or you have a clear idea of what you want, or have some design skills then designing the logo yourself could be attempting idea.
Software
Adobe Creative Suite is one of the best design packages you can buy www.adobe.com but can be hard to use for the untrained designer. Don’t fear as there are hundreds of useful tutorials and help videos that come as a part of the package, that will help you to learn how to use the software, if you have the time to learn it.
Alternatively, you can try and use a design software tool like www.canva.com that is much simpler to use. The software comes with hundreds of built-in templates that are fully customisable and will aide you in the design process. You can also work off a blank canvas and start from scratch adding all of your design elements and designs.
If you choose to go with Canva and pay for the premium offering you can then create a full branding suite, within the platform. This will allow you to save your fonts, colour palates and logo designs. You can then easily work with these to create social media posts and much more.
If you decide to design your own logo and find you need some help at a latter stage, having your mood boards and a basic idea of what you want your logo to look like, will aid the process when speaking with a professional designer. Your boards will create a guide and enable you to write a professional brief for them.
Focus on the Use of Colour
Colour matters a lot as different colours have different meanings.
You can educate yourself about what each hue communicates to your audiences, such as red for passion or bright orange for joy.
Pick colours that spark the emotions you want your guests to feel whenever they see your restaurant logo. Colours that remind them about your food and act as a reminder of what they are expecting or missing out on.
Always try to keep your colour palate simple, using two colours or a maximum of four, so your logo doesn’t seem too cluttered. You can always use shades of your chosen colours to create details in the image to add more depth.
Tailor and Target
Your logo must be unique, so your brand doesn’t get confused with another similar company. Using a customised font will help you stand out if you use lettering in your logo, this can be created for you by a graphic designer, or if you pick an image, use one that sets you apart. For example, create a unique character to be the design which can become your mascot. This mascot can be then used across all of your communications.
Styles and Shapes: Balance and Clean
At a glance, your customers must grasp what you want to communicate to them. This calls for an uncluttered design that doesn’t confuse your audience about what to focus on. There should be one primary shape or image, with others simply complementing it, without drawing too much attention.
The human mind automatically responds negatively when a design is out of balance. For example, having too much empty space instead of making fonts of pictures larger. Get a designer’s assistance to help you put together an image that communicates balance.
Simplicity is Key
As mentioned, you don’t want an over complicated design, so you must be prepared to remove elements throughout the design process. The image or character you love the most may simply not work once you’ve gone through a few revisions. Cut out anything that isn’t really necessary, so you’re left with a logo in its simplest form. This prevents confusion but also makes it easier to replicate on branding items, clothing, and menus.
Test it
Does your logo work? We recommend you ask. After working on the logo for hours your view is no longer objective, so get fresh perspective.
Create a few different versions of the logo, playing around with different fonts, layouts, or colour palettes. Now ask your friends and family for their input or launch an online social media campaign to get feedback from potential customers, this research will be key and help inform your design process.
How to Make a Restaurant Logo Work
Keeping to the classic rules we have covered; it is always good to look to align your logo with a specific niche. Here are a few ways you can be effective.
Focusing on the Colour Palette
We have already touched on colour earlier, but now you need to keep in mind your restaurants niche, while you finalise the primary colours palate.
If you are designing a Chinese restaurant logo then consider red, gold, and yellow colour palettes as these colours are very symbolic in Chinese culture, while royal purple and gold work very well for Thai style restaurants.
For Italian or Mexican restaurant logo’s, think of their national flags, green, white and red colour palette is a highly recognisable colour scheme.
For fast-food restaurants, red and yellow are strong colours, think Mc Donald’s, or red and white for KFC. Fine dining restaurants tend to go with a starker colour plate such as black, grey and metallic silver, white or maybe even gold, but any dark shades will do.
If in doubt, when introducing this palate into your logo design, ask yourself, which of these colours do you want to be recognisable with your restaurant? You want your customers to start imagining the food and atmosphere the moment they see your logo.
To Taste, is to Touch, is to Feel
Successful restaurants are not only about the food and drink, but the whole customer experience. You want your logo to create an image of what your customers will experience when at your venue. You can do this by encompassing images within your logo design. Let them visualise that stone baked pizza straight from the oven or that succulent steak straight from the grill, you can do this by adding these images to your design. Always remember a picture can say a thousand words, but just make sure its the right picture and it tells the whole story.
You don’t want your design to be too busy on the eye, so try to keep it clean, decide on whether these images will be the main part of the logo or just a minor element within your wider design assets.
Conclusion
Starting a restaurant business is hard, it’s a super exciting journey that can take a passion into a profession. But by getting the correct logo design from the start means you will have an amazing base to build off, letting you grow the rest of your design assets around it. You can then focus on making your restaurant into an iconic establishment, serving your delicious food to your patrons.
If you need some help with your restaurants logo design or branding, get in touch today and we can have a chat over a coffee.