DRESSED
TO KALE
The Brand Manual By Elizabeth Moriarty
A Peak Inside... Introduction
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Research & Inspiration
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Logo
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DRESSED TO KALE is all about creating salads so high-end that they are destined to be on runway. The restaurant was curated by a young woman with big dreams for both fashion and fine dining, we combine the best of both worlds. All of our dishes are embellished with a delicate mix of flavors, woven together and dress with the most delectable dressings. Their beauty and quality are breathtaking. Join us in the heart of Manhattan where Dressed To Kale was born to make its debut. Our posh setting and sleek, modern furniture is the best place to sit and sip wine whether you’re on break with your colleagues or having dinner with friends. Don’t forget to slip on your best shoes because we stick by dress code: no fashion faux pas allowed.
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Research& Inspiration The original idea for Dressed To Kale was to be a runway focused salad restaurant with small plates as well. A lot of the visual research I did focused on the general vibe of the runway, sleek, black and white, long, thin, lots of open and empty space. I spent a lot of time studying fashion lingo to use in my menu copy and lists of the best fashion designers. Once I created lists of fashion designers and lingo that I wanted to represent in my project, I started looking at salad recipes. I found it was difficult to find so many different kale recipes on the internet that were different and not too mundane. After I had a set of recipes that I was happy I matched them up to the designers I chose based on their fashion style if it fit. Alexander McQueen is a little more out there with his work so I chose a salad for him that was a little bit wacky as well. Vera Wang is very clean and simple so I chose a salad that was also on the simpler side. I then started looking at different restaurants around Manhattan that were expensive to get an idea of what prices made sense. I wanted it to be a bit ridiculously expensive because I felt that that reflects the world of high end fashion. When I delved further into the menu I ended up looking at a lot of imagery that I could use to combine fashion and salads. That’s where the croquis and fashion photography comes in. My original idea of having a menu that reflects the runway or the exclusivity of high fashion was scratched and instead it developed into a fashion magazine. For this I looked at various fashion magazines I already own but mostly I just focused on Vogue. Vogue is classic and highly recognizable to most people as representing the fashion world so I used it as inspiration for the entire menu design.
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Yves Saint Laurant fall 2017 suit
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Tommy Hilfinger fall 2017 sweater
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Logo Desig 12 Brand Manual
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1 The first logo idea that I had was to have a fork, pointed downwards, stabbing a piece of kale. This idea stemmed from the long, elegant look of the runway that I was channeling at the time.
2 As the logo moved forward it developed into a piece of kale in the shape of some type of fashion accessory, a shoe, a boa, and a hat. The shape of the hat meshed the best with the shape of the kale so the other ideas were scrapped and the kale with a hat idea was expanded upon.
3 As the logo moved forward it developed into a piece of kale in the shape of some type of fashion accessory, a shoe, a boa, and a hat. The shape of the hat meshed the best with the shape of the kale so the other ideas were scrapped and the kale with a hat idea was expanded upon.
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A lot of variations were done with this final logo idea to find a hat and kale shape that worked well together. The kale needed to be prominent but not overbearing. It needed to be understood as a piece of kale, but not overly detailed.
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We ended on a final logo that had a more elegant swoop to the hat and the kale with the didot font stacked below. Because the contor of the shape and text don’t relate well on their own, the whole thing needed to be contained in a shape. To keep the playfulness of the mark, a little bit of the leaf to the right, breaks the box.
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Identit 16 Brand Manual
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DRESSED
TO KALE To make the various shades of green that are in the kale imagery stand out, the rest of the identity remains grayscale. This is most notably seen in two different types of imagery Dressed To Kale focuses on, the fashion photography and the croquis. In both of these types of imagery photographic kale replaces the clothing and accessories most prominent in the images. The patten, used in the hatbox,
embraced those various shades of green. A large part of the identity is the use of the font didot. Variations of didot and other fonts with extreme contrast between thick and thin are used all over the fashion industry. Because didot gets hard to read when used in smaller formats and on screens, the complementary font utopia is also incorporated.
Pattern
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Applicatio 18 Brand Manual
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Keeping to the high fashion theme, the menu was inspired by various fashion magazines. Fashion photography was taken into photoshop, edited into black and white images, and kale was added in to replace some of the clothing and accessories. This process gave the imagery a more slick high fashion feel to it than most magazines typicaly have. The kale and other imagery tied the imagry back to the restaurant aspect of the menu. The type in each page was various versions of the font didot and justified left.
Left Page: Inside look, first page of the menu Right Page (clockwise top left): To go hat box, custom domaine brubache jurancon sec, menu cover
When thinking of possibilities for collateral, a hat box as a to-go box stood out as a perfect combination of food and fashion. We wanted to take the classic stripe pattern and make it a little more modern with wider stripes that are flooded with an image, while still refrencing the classic aspects of it by having a logo based, low contrast pattern on the inside. Since Dressed To Kale is an expensive restaurant, we wanted to keep the collateral clever, but still something found in an upscale place. A wine bottle encompased those needs and paired well with the salads. To tie it into the menu, yet still make it stand apart, we chose to use the image of a croquis wearing a dress made of photographed lettuce. While this imagery did appear in the menu, it only appeared once and was not the focus. The label of the bottle kept with the clean, black, white, and various shades of green.
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Websit 22 Brand Manual
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Home
About
Menu
Contact
Gallery
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Classics
Trending
In the website, the kale imagery used in the hat box is again used as a hero image on the homepage. Below this is the croquis acting as a subnavigation. On the menu page, most of the imagery from the printed meny is reused and rearanged into a new format. New imagery, that also related to the fashion photography, was brought in on the contact and gallery pages.
Best in Wine
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Street view
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Inside the restaurant
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