Skilletz - Rebrand
*Not a paid project
The overall goal of this project and rebrand is to help refresh and reestablish the American / Mexican cuisine cafe to help create a clearer visual identity to elevate and present this wonderful quick service spot. The client is a family-owned mom-and-pop shop of individuals who present their love for the community through their delicious food. Their visual identity has become a mix of old and contemporary visual styles, having a three-tower brand name,consistency, and overall identity. They mainly get their restaurant customers from word of mouth and the long lines you see outside their cafe rather than a visual engagement. With their hard work on cooking up wonderful food for their customers and community, the intent is to help establish a visual brand identity system for this small quick-service restaurant, one that is reliable, and recognizable and reinstates this wonderful business of many years serving delicious American and Mexican cuisine.
Skilletz Restaurant is an authentic American, Mexican restaurant located at 37378 Niles Blvd, Fremont, CA 94536. Their goal is to Bring communities together through breakfast or lunch is part of our mission. We want our customers to feel at home and experience our beautiful Niles. There are museums, antique stores, theaters and so much history that you and your loved ones will feel a bond with this wonderful neighborhood. We feel blessed to have you as a customer and look forward to serving you. The Dino’s family all work together at the cafe. During 2018 the parents and founders of Skilletz had past and they passed down the cafe restaurant to their daughter who is now running it with her children and friends. Since then, their staff has grown with the success more customer come in and hopefully, in the upcoming future a new locating will soon open.
This is the stage where my initial traditional sketch ideas are refined and converted into a vector-based digital format. I intended the logomark to complement the restaurant's aesthetic identity from the beginning of the design process. The idea that they were attempting to "bring friends and family together" inspired me. The symbol of the heart joining the two hands represents inviting friends and family to the cafe. Melted butter is represented by the heart when it comes to the pancake icon. Pancakes are a brunch essential since this restaurant is a breakfast brunch cafe; I wanted to make it clear that it's not an all-day dining establishment.
Despite my extensive experimentation with various textures to simulate the appearance of a fork, I finally decided not to use this aspect because it detracted from the overall form of the design and made it busier than necessary. However, keeping the text in place helped with the adjustment. To make the text more readable, the font was also changed from following the wave to being horizontal at a constant x-height.
This was the final logo design that was decided upon. Because of the potential for viewer interpretation, I chose this design for the final logo. To make the brand name appear full, add the fork idea and rotate the heart angle. This construable double refers to the design's height because the logo, enclosed in a circle, suggests a little space, a reflection of Skilletz's actual location, which is a tiny cafe.
By giving the makeover a fresher, cleaner vibe while respecting tradition in many ways, the overall logo's simple, vintage style elevates the idea.
Four color connections are explored in these colorations: triadic, complementary, analogous, and monochromatic. There were several hue, tint, and shade options in each color investigation. Color tints were a crucial component of this redesign and remained the same in all versions.
Mock-ups:
