Rebrand of an Independant Company in Huddersfield
Independent Companies- Huddersfield
Restaurants
Clothing Shops
Bota Fogo Discovery Bay Gringo Herbert’s Little Buddha Marimonte Med-One Primo
Catwalk Dais Diamonds and Dusters Endemic Magenta Mr Frog Dancewear Pink Cadillac Pixie Pop & Posh
Bars
Vintage Shops
Bar Maroc Mavericks Parish Picturehouse Rock Cafe Secco Vox Zephyr
Finder’s Keepers Part 2 Revival Vintage The Left Bank Working Class Vintage
Cafes
Other
Barrington’s Deli Blue Rooms Cafe Ollo Cafe Society Coffeevolution Four Cousins Queenie’s Thyme & Square
Calder Graphics CA Wilson Crafty Praxis Home unique Iprint Apparel John Woods’s photography Square Ten Urban Escape
Moodboard of Huddersfield
Moodboard of chosen company
Moodboard of Target Audience
Moodboard of Rock Cafe
Initial Reaction When we were first presented wiith this brief, we were told to get into groups and go and explore the town centre of Huddersield to find as many independant companies as we could. From this, we compiled our list. The next task was to create three moodboards about the brief. Our group ended up creating four, one for Huddersfield town itself, the second was about bars/restaurants, the third for our demographic and finally a moodboard about Rock Cafe itself. For the Huddersfield town moodboard, I tried to create the look and feel you get when walking around the town, so I included a lot of the amazing architecture that we have in the centre of town, but also things like Cliffords Tower because Huddersfield has lots of beautiful scenery outside of the centre. One thing that I definitely had to include was the train station, I think it is one of the best, most interesting buildings in Huddersfield. The second moodboard about bars and restaurants was a mixture of what is around and what is popular in 2014. There is a big hype about American diners and cocktail bars, I think this is the route I want to go down for my final rebrand. Our demographic moodboard throws together everything about our target audience. After researching into Rock Cafe, we decided on the age group of 1830 year olds. I feel that my final brand guidelines will have to incorporate eating, drinking, live music and friendship. The final moodboard about Rock Cafe was an eyeopener for me. Even though the menu has recently been changed, I think the whole place would massively benefit from a rebrand! The logo, signage, the uniform and everything could be so much more eyecatching to customers. The outside of the business is so minimal that you wouldn’t even know what Rock Cafe is! Here are a few examples of their current branding style from their website. Even though the menu has just been redone, I feel much more still needs working on! The only part of this I value, is the last design about Thursday Burger Night, however it does look very generic and copied.
Rock Cafe Huddersfield Rock Cafe is an independantly run bar in the centre of Hudderfield, situated just opposite from the Town Hall, in a busy shopping area. The entrance to Cafe Rock does not have the luxury of a big shop frontage, instead it’s quite discreet, a sign above a pair of double doors leading upstairs, if you weren’t looking for it you’d probably miss it. I feel that when you walk in, the place is more like a bar/club rather than restaurant, but in a tasteful way, the decor is all themed as expected to suit the name. The website for the place shows off both sides to the company, both the restaurant and club. Recently in 2014, the menu has just been changed, not only the items, but also the design. The previous menu was dull, boring and lacked colour. Even though the food choice was brilliant, it didn’t make you excited to choose your food. This is the main reason that I will aim to make my menu as eye catching as I can! Information from the website: The Rock Cafe Huddersfield is an American themed bar serving delicious food and snacks by day, and exciting club/gig venue by night! What’s on? - Dance til 3.30am - Party over 2 floors - Party classics and chart toppers Food... - Served daily til late - Great value tasty food - Freshly prepared by our chefs As a business, they do run event nights, such as a student one on Wednesdays. Unless you had been on the website, you wouldn’t know about the events as there are no promoters or staff handing out flyers. In Huddersfield there are always flyerers around town to attract students to the next big night out, I think Rock Cafe have really missed out on a good trick there.
Research into branding Definition: Branding is the process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a differentiated and significant presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or a group of sellers to differentiate them from others�. A good brand, will always try to: Deliver a clear message Confirm their credibility Connect with their target prospects emotionally Motivate the buyer Create User Loyalty Once a company has acheived all of this, they should create a solid set of branding guidlines to follow that will make sure their name, logo, signage and general look and feel will be corporate, and always recognised by customers.
Brand Guidelines Research
Brand Guidelines are essentially a set of rules and regulations that explain how your brand works. They show designers how to use your companys branding correctly. A good set of guidelines should always include: Type Style, Logo usage, Colour palette, Image style/photography, Business card and letterhead design, Brand message or mission statement. Brand identity style guides are often very strict, like the Scouts Association on the next page, as they want to ensure complete uniformity to make everyone recognise their brand at all times.
Scout Brand Guidelines
I have been contacted about creating some logo and letterhead work for South East Scotland Scouts, here are the main points of their brand guidelines that I have been sent. I had to read through sixty-two pages of rules and regulations about typography, illustrations, size, colours and brand ethics! I think these few points are a good example of brand guidelines, however I feel that the vast amount of pages was unneccesary. This shows me that I want to keep my guidelines for the rebrand of Rock Cafe to a minimum. During my research, I found out that even one of the biggest companies in the world, Apple have a shorter set of branding guidelines than the Scouts!
AMERICAN DINER This page is about American diners, I feel this would be good with the bright colours and playful fonts that will make people look twice, compared to the plain frontage that Rock Cafe currently have. However, I don’t think that it’s easy to make one diner stand out from another, as they all look the same with similiar colour schemes, menu designs and typefaces. If the rebrand was to follow this style, it would be difficult to identify as a nightclub as well. People wouldn’t expect a party, instead just a burger and a milkshake.
This page is concentrating on how we could bring anoutdoor ‘festival feeling’ into a restaurant and bar environment. Even though I really like this idea and think it would bring in loads of customers, it just wouldn’t work. You’d have to change everything about Rock Cafe, it would be way more than just a rebrand! For starters, the name would have to go, the interior would need a massive revamp and the menu/drinks would need tweaking to be more like a festival.
Cocktail Bar
I really like the style of a cocktail bar, with the lit up bar, lots of bottles on display and sophisticated design elements dotted around. This would be a great route for Rock Cafe to go down as influence for the rebrand. Glasses, coasters, lit up company name, uniforms and so much more could be created with a cocktail bar feel in mind.
ROCK AND ROLL There are quite a few restaurants around now that spring to mind when thinking of a rock and roll influence. TGI Fridays most definitely have a rock and roll vibe within their colour scheme, it is mostly black and red with bright lights to advertise their restaurants around the country. A lot of independant or small chains of restaurants use this too, Almost Famous in Manchester is a great example of this, there are big murals on the walls, mostly black and white with sudden bursts of colour throughout them.
COLOURS
Sketches/Plans
EST 1994
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1994
ROCK CAFE
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
ROCK CAFE
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
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ROCK CAFE
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BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
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ROCK CAFE
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB EST 1994
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Chosen Logo
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
I have chosen this logo as I didn’t want a boring circular logo which are all over at the moment. I feel the colour scheme and range of shapes sums up Rock Cafe pretty well, it’s a vibrant place to eat or drink with a different twist that other restaurants don’t have! The star has been incorporated from their original logo, I chose to do this as the company is an old, family run business and their regular customers who have been dining there for over 20 years may be put off by a drastic change. I also chose to create a few secondary logos for each of the components of the newly rebranded Rock Cafe, these show off all of the things they have to offer .
These are my secondary logos that advertise the three separate parts of Rock Cafe, that bar, restaurant and club. I have kept these more or less similiar to to the primary logo to make sure that the brand remains easily recognisable.
Objects I have chosen to rebrand and design: A menu, The coasters, Business cards, Wall displays,
Coaster
Here is my final design for my coaster for Rock Cafe in Huddersfield. The design follows all the brand guidlines, doesn’t distort the logo, follows the colour scheme and doesn’t distract from the logo advertising the business!
Business Card
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB EST 1994
The business card has been designed to follow the brand guidelines and also to keep the theme going of simple, yet eye catching design. I have chosen to use the main logo and not a secondary one, to show all aspects of the business off.
Menu
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB EST 1994