TopPlate Branding Journey: From Concept to Cohesive Identity
Overview
End the “Where to eat” debate – With a quick vote among friends, TopPlate will help you discover and decide on your next dining adventure together. It’s all about good food with great company.
As this startup embarked on a new adventure of the unknown they were hoping to create a foundation for their brand so they could expand and share this experience with others
Goals & Objectives
- Differentiation: Craft a distinctive visual identity to stand out in the competitive dining landscape.
- Clarity and Consistency: Establish clear brand guidelines for cohesive presentation across all platforms.
- Adaptability and Scalability: Develop a flexible visual identity adaptable to diverse mediums and contexts.
Target Audience
TopPlate’s target audience primarily comprises college students facing the common pain points of indecision and difficulty in group dining choices.
Pain Points
- Difficulty deciding where to eat
- Limited knowledge of new dining options
- Challenges in group dining decision-making
- Limited budget making it challenging to find affordable dining options
Design Process
TopPlate’s logo was designed to embody playfulness, character, and a passion for food, reflecting these qualities through color, style, and a distinctive icon.
Brainstorming & Sketching
Diving into a brainstorming session I sketched out a variety of concepts, with the initial name “TopEats” later changed to “TopPlate” due to existing trademark issues.
Vectorization
From my sketches, stakeholders selected the most promising concept. With precision, I transformed these ideas into digital drafts through vectorization.
Feedback & Revision
Stakeholder feedback guided the refinement of logo designs, ensuring alignment with brand values and objectives.
Final
After rounds of iteration, we arrived at the final logo, capturing the essence of TopPlate’s brand identity.
Brand Guidelines
With the new logo, a branding guide was necessary to fit the company’s identity to ensure cohesion across mediums and platforms. This was carefully crafted to serve as a comprehensive reference for the company and how a brand should be presented visually and verbally.
/Fin
Despite challenges such as the name change, a final logo design was successfully achieved, meeting client satisfaction.
The importance of implementing and enforcing branding guidelines was emphasized, as periodic reminders were necessary to ensure consistent and effective logo usage across various teams and platforms.
