BoxPark Sushi Brand Development
The BoxPark Sushi brand project started from scratch, developing the brand's personality, voice and tone and target audience. Creating the brand's personality is meant to serve as an aid in creating the imagery, voice, tone and message that will be shared with the audience.
An authentic Japanese sushi restaurant that incorporates its culture beyond just the food, creating an enlightening experience for its audience; that is what Box Park Sushi aims to be. With this in mind and Herald's question “if your brand was a person, how would you describe its personality to someone?” (Herald, E. 2018) the brand’s main traits were determined to be as follows:
-Fun-loving: for it aims to create a new enjoyable fun experience for its customers.
-Charismatic: charisma is the quality of being able to attract, charm and influence, a necessary characteristic to attract the public.
-Teacherly: because it aims to offer some knowledge about the Japanese culture.
-Authentic: because all staff is Japanese, all meals are Japanese, the dining experience and educational experience are all authentic Japanese.
The Brand Image
Logo design sketches
These designs were created keeping the brand's personality in mind: Fun-loving, Charismatic, Teacherly and Authentic.
Most of them illustrate a very traditional Japanese look to appeal to the authentic trait, while others were more abstracted and stylized in a way that would appeal more to the fun-loving and charismatic traits.
The color palette
The color palette was created to go with the brand’s identity:
-The turquoise shade “encourages creativity” (Color Psychology)
-The salmon color, which as explained by color psychology “encourages action and confidence” (Color Psychology)
-The pink shade which color psychology refers to as “…a calming non-threating color” (Color Psychology)
-Brown which color psychology associates with “… warmth, protection security, dependability or resilience” (Color Psychology)
Logo Sketches: The second iteration
These were the logo sketches selected in the second iteration and final logo design selected in single and full color. According to shape psychology research by Peate, “Circles seem softer and more welcoming than harshly angled shapes like triangular and squares.” ( Peate, S. 2018). Taking this into consideration, the logo with the circular shape was selected, for it would represent the brand’s fun-loving, welcoming and charismatic voice and tone more appropriately.
Brand Vision Board
Initial brand identity imagery selected for BoxPark Sushi. Very traditional Japanese elements and vibrant colors. It predominantly relies on stock images and photos.
Media assets developed for the BoxPark Sushi brand. The bumper sticker asset was too irregularly shaped, making it a difficult asset to work with in production.
The pole banner assets developed followed in the traditional Japanese imagery set for the brand.
The Turning Point
When developing the next asset, a poster to go with the rest of the brand assets, the imagery changed from stock images that were strongly traditionally Japanese to this background that was specifically designed for the BoxPark Sushi brand. This piece portrays a view of the sky from between the cherry blossom branches and quickly became the central piece to the brand's imagery.
The brand now focuses on heavily graphical assets that complement the color palette selected instead of stock images and photography.
Final Asset: The Brand Guide
The brand guide offers all the specifics to the brand image alongside with the assets and all considerations to keep in mind when designing for the BoxPark Sushi brand.
