For this group project, my group members and I were tasked with creating a brand that elevated the restaurant experience within the confines of takeout and delivery in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. We created our global street food restaurant, KUIRI, to bring families together to eat, play, and learn about different cultures. Our team’s goal was to distract from a time of uncertainty and immerse them in a new culture. A diverse range of cuisine options as well as a board game popular to one of the represented countries would help families learn about cultures beyond their own quarantined homes.

Once we landed on this idea, we created a set of user personas to define the clientele of our business and streamline our designs.

During the naming process, our group compiled an exhaustive list of all words and word combinations to do with food and travel. We landed on two ideas that seemed to work; WanderFull, a play on words incorporating both ideas, and Kuiri, the universal language “Esperanto” word for cook.

After narrowing our name list down and knowing our brand concept, we compiled some images as a group to start the logo research phase. Keeping street food, travel, and the board game in mind, we found a variety of logos. Some of them focused on negative space, typography, and others were more about the symbol. A common theme we found was that each logo used very bright colors, cleverly fused the travel and food concepts together, and had a playful appearance.

In the finalization of our brand, our team defined three core values for our restaurant.

Eat: At Kuiri/WanderFull, we bring you the most beloved dishes from the countries that do street food best. Our diverse menu has something for every person and palate.

Play: In the spirit of street food, we believe in fast and fun meals. That’s why our Meal Boxes transform into games to play while you enjoy your meal and your company.

Learn: We believe that the sharing of cultures must always be accompanied by the sharing of knowledge. It’s important to us that our customers learn about the food and culture they are experiencing in a way that’s easy to digest!

For my individual design process, I also chose the name “KUIRI.” I believe this name adds a sense of curiosity and a universal touch, leaving the viewer wanting to know more about its meaning and the brand itself. First off, I started brainstorming and sketching out as many ideas as I could think of on paper. Symbols I associated with the brand at this point were cooking utensils, a food cart, table, people, a plane, and the earth.

For my moodboards, I started to explore the concept of street food and global cuisine in order to gain some inspiration. Creating the moodboards helped me gain an insight for the style and visual direction of my brand. In the end, I created three moodboards total, each with different themes: how board games and food are combined, colorful and bright typography reminiscent of the bursting flavors of international street food, and lastly, patterns. I was particularly drawn to the one focusing on intricate patterns because I believed they could convey culture in a unique and aesthetic way.

After a revisit of my logo sketches, none of them felt quite suggestive of a pattern or could otherwise truly serve as a stand-alone emblem. I went back to the drawing board, this time digitally, and explored how I could play with shapes, symmetry, and repetition. I wanted to combine the visual of a street with dashed lines with a gameboard, which essentially would become the outer edge of my pattern mark: inside, I incorporated people sitting around a table together as a family with their meal and smoke symbols.

Many versions later, I drew four people sitting at a table which had the hint of the negative space of a square. Capitalizing on this element, I decided to make this my new outer ring for simplicity. I then proceeded to add in dashed lines and dome dishes inside this ring.

To bridge the gap between my mood-boards and mockups, my style-tile helped me envision the essence of my brand. I researched other street food companies to gain additional inspiration. At one point I came across the brand “Arancino,” a street food company specializing in Italian food; I was drawn to the way they utilized space, shapes, complementary colors, and symmetry. During my research, I realized that, to capture street food’s significance, I did not have to include all the symbols I envisioned into one logo mark. Moving forward, I instead focused on creating a logo that featured organic shapes and symmetry to really push the pattern concept. The handwritten “KUIRI” is curved to express the essence of smoke; the dashed lines and dome dishes are representative of street food. From these symbols, I was able to experiment with creating a variety of patterns I could implement across my branding.

As for my menu, I included photos for each food item with dashed line borders to emphasize the street aspect. The dashes are a subtle reference to not only my logo, but the lines commonly found dividing a road. The photos help the customer see what they order, especially as they may not be familiar with various international cuisines. Each menu page features a different country and is color coded with my brand’s colors. To tie it back to the pattern concept, a hint of my pattern was added to the inside of the food labels for each item name.

Staying true to our three values, Eat, Play, and Learn, we wanted families to be able to immerse themselves in a new culture while enjoying a board game together to feel like an experience. Using Fantastic Fold, our group created a dieline of our carrying case. As a group, we chose to create packaging to put a spotlight on India. This carrying case opens up to the Ludo Board Game, the national board game of India.

First, we created the die-line template in Adobe Illustrator with our artwork, imported our file into Fantastic Fold, and lastly, we put the case into our packaging scene in Adobe Dimension. The way these programs support each other seamlessly, as well as seeing the process from start to finish, was a rewarding experience.

As a team, we were able to complete and build a COVID friendly restaurant business from scratch and we are immensely proud of our teamwork. Behind all our final deliverables were group meetings, critiques, and revisions which were all integral to the design process. We appreciated this creative project as it enabled us to come together, think outside the box, and build a brand that is reflective of the current circumstances.

Team Members: Riya Dindigal & Vy Duong

Instructor: Professor Jenny Kowalski