How do you create a truly authentic brand for an American-style diner offering deep south soul food, when you were brought up on cottage pie and crisp sandwiches in a small rural village in the UK?
Well first and foremost you lean on the experience and knowledge of your client that grew up on the food, the music, and the culture that is the beating heart of every dish on their menu.
Hailing from the southern US state of Virginia, Bea already had a proven track record in F&B running a succesful London bakery for many years. Her latest venture, STAX, was to be a truly authentic American dining experience, offering the type of fast food that she grew up with. Not the British take on what we expect an American burger joint to look like and the food it should serve. Her menu consisted of deep south staples such as buttermilk chicken and waffles, Cajun popcorn shrimp and crispy soft shell crab.
Bea knew her menu was something missing from the London food scene. She knew she was onto something special and was confident in her food. What she didn’t know was what the ‘wrapper’ that was going to bring this culinary experience to life looked like.
Working collaboratively, we went deep into developing a brand strategy for STAX, exploring her vision for the business, ideal customer profiles, competitor analysis, and all the bells and whistles that would feed into the design phase of the project.
One thing to come out of our strategy sessions was the importance of music to the whole experience. Bea had chosen the name STAX as an homage to the Stax Record label that was influential in the creation of Southern soul music. That gave the perfect steer towards the direction that this brand would take.
After some exploration into how music could be represented in the brand, we created a custom wordmark, reminiscent of the neon signs of the American Diner’s heyday, combined with concentric lines to represent the etched grooves on vinyl records.
This really tied the two things that Stax represented: great food and great music.
With brand strategy in place and an identity that the client was pumped about showing off on launch, we supplied everything needed to roll the identity out across all touchpoints including print and digital applications, menu, patterned burger wraps and of course, the quintessential American Diner feature - a kick-ass neon sign hanging pride of place in the front window!
“We wanted a really modern, streamlined but not cliched idea of the American Diner in our cuisine and that had to be reflected in our brand. The logo had to feel timeless but never been seen before.”
“Nuco Creative really listened to us and created an amazing logo, reminiscent of the neon signs of the American Diner’s heyday, infused with the etched lines you’d find on vinyl and really tied the two things that Stax has always been about in American history: great food and music.”