Logo & Branding for new Seattle food tour company at Pike Place Market
I kicked off this project with a stakeholder interview to learn the clients' goals and vision.
The clients were starting a new food tour company at Pike Place Market in Seattle (initially "Meet the Market Tours"), and needed branding, a business logo & print assets.
They envisioned a bright & colorful color palette, and were particularly inspired by 1950s-60s Mid Century Modern design & vintage/neon signs. For typography, they wanted a combination of script & sans serif fonts.
The first step was creating the business logo.
To gain market context, I started with researching & benchmarking Seattle food tour competitor websites & logos, to identify areas of opportunity and to be sure the branding would stand out amongst competitors, while still aligning with the clients' vision.
I noticed that competitors used primarily text-based logos, focusing on warm color palettes.
Next, I created three moodboards, each inspired by different client ideas, and shared with the clients to get aligned on a direction to pursue.
I sketched some rough logo concepts to run by the clients before diving into digital design:
The clients liked these two concepts the best, and wanted to combine them into a circular logo with the signs or arrows extending beyond the circular background.
With the general concept in place, I started exploring different font pairings with the business name "Meet the Market Tours" to put in context with the first digital rough draft of the logo.
I created a Google Drive folder to organize and share the project assets & deliverables with the clients:
The clients loved the color palette, and chose the font pairing of Meow Script with Anton. They requested to change the direction of the arrow, and also wanted the signs, text and arrow to be outlined in black.
Additionally, the clients wanted to see a "Chef's Choice" concept, as the founder who would be running the tours used to be a chef himself.
Taking the client feedback from the initial rough draft, I refined the initial logo design in Figma and set it against different backgrounds that might be used.
I also ideated on the "Chef's Choice" concept, drawing from inspiration like 5-star ratings and chef hats, and created some simple logo variations to present.
The clients preferred to stay with the initial logo concept, as they felt that although the chef direction was a nice nod to the founder's past, it might be a little misleading to customers, who might think they were getting a food tour of fine dining restaurant experiences, rather than local food spots in Pike Place Market.
A challenge surfaced - as the clients showed their new logo to contacts in the Pike Place Market, some friends noted that the colors and style were similar to another popular Seattle tour (not a competitor food tour, but a historical tour) in the Pike Place Market area - Bill Speidel's Underground Tour. As the clients were concerned that this may cause some unpleasant currents, they wanted to explore some different color palettes.
I created some color variations on the logo to show the clients, and they liked the "All-American" theme:
A second challenge surfaced - when the clients went to apply for their Pike Place Market business license, they ran into some difficulties with their desired business name "Meet the Market Tours." They decided they would rather change the business name than fight for it, and asked me to help brainstorm suitable business names.
The clients loved one of my suggestions "Chef John's Tasty Tours", as it incorporated the founder's chef past directly into the name, and encompassed their business vibe and personality.
Because "Chef John" used vastly different letters than "Meet", the previously chosen font "Meow Script" was no longer suitable, so I went back to the typography drawing board, and ideated on several script fonts to show the clients. They chose "Pacifico", and their new logo was officially finished! I uploaded their 3 favorite logo variations (no background, white background with blue outline, and blue background) in svg, jpg & png formats to the respective Google Drive folder.
The next step was to create business cards. I held another stakeholder meeting to discuss their goals & preferences, and to obtain the correct contact information for the content. I recommended to have a QR code on their business cards that linked to their website so that customers (primarily tourists on the go) could easily scan and book tours.
Using the newly established style guide, I created several color variations on two different logo styles to present to the clients:
- Style 1: Logo & pitch on Front, contact info & QR code on Back
- Style 2: Logo & contact info on Front, pitch & QR code on Back
Final Business Card Design:
The clients decided that they also wanted to have me design a colorful, double-sided flyer for them to pass out to tourists at the market.
I started with gathering some inspiration to inform my design. Opportunities that stood out to me were:
1) Incorporating a QR code on the flyer - tourists "on the go" can easily scan and access (even if they throw the flyer away).
2) Rounded images/elements to balance the overall angular design of the flyer shape & text content.
3) Images that tell the story and encompass the tour offerings & vibe.
As the business did not yet have any photos, I recommended the clients have a photoshoot so that we could showcase real images of the tours in-action to help with visual storytelling on the flyer (as well as their website).
I brainstormed on potential content for the flyer:
Front: Logo, tour guide introduction, customer review, tour images, QR code, phone number
Back: Tour details (pulled from website), additional images, QR code, website, phone number
I came up with a few flyer versions (with placeholder stock images) to present to the clients. They loved Version 1: Light Mode (especially because of the custom playful retro wave graphic), and wanted to update the "Food Tours" title on the front to "Meet the Market Tours", which would be the name of their initial tour offering. They had some content updates on the tour details, and also provided images from the photoshoot and an array of customer reviews to choose from to complete the content.
I carefully reviewed the photoshoot images & provided reviews, and selected a variety that I felt best encompassed Chef John's Tasty Tours business vibes & visually told the story of his tour offerings, and incorporated these into the final design content.
