This project started out with two things: a food item and a style. After both of these things were drawn at random, the goal was to build a brand identity for a food truck. We had to research, create mindmaps, create an idea matrix, and create a style guide including the typefaces, colors, shapes, and reference images we intended to use for the branding. Only after all of this preliminary work was done were we supposed to come up with a name for our business. Afterwards, we set out to sketch potential logos. After we settled on a design and vectorized it, we critiqued what had been created so far. Afterwards, we created a moodboard consisting of images which fell into the style that we were trying to emulate, and everything we created from this point on had to fall in with the images on this moodboard. After this step and some more critiquing, we created collateral materials, including a vehicle wrap, menu, and shirt. By this point everything we were supposed to create had been made, and from this point on we continued critiquing and polishing our designs until we came out with our finished product.
The food and style that I received was toaster pastries and Early Modernism. For Early Modernism, I chose to focus mainly on the Bauhaus and De Stijl. I was very happy to create my project under these parameters; I very much enjoy Modernism, and I very much enjoy toaster pastries. While studying Early Modernism, I picked up that a large quantity of works consisted of primary colors (red, yellow, and blue), and the majority of these works were also very geometric.
To me the perfect combination of these design characteristics is Piet Mondrian’s body of work, so I tried to associate my branding with his style. When it came time to name my business, I settled on Modern Tart; I have always been a fan of puns, and I thought it worked nicely. After this, it was time to create my logo. I associated the usage of rectangles in Mondrian’s work with the rectangular shape of a toaster pastry, and thus my icon was born. For the wordmark, I chose to use the typeface Bauhaus 93, because it reminded me of Herbert Bayer’s Universal typeface, which to me emulated the style and ideology of the Bauhaus.
My logo was created in Illustrator. I altered the kerning because the default kerning was not great, and I altered the size and shape of some of the letters in “Modern” so that the bottom of every letter landed on the baseline. I chose to make “Modern” all caps because I wanted a contained logo with a strong border all the way around, and capitalizing the letters assured me that there would be a strong visual line at the top of the word. I made sure to use a grid when creating the wordmark, after making sure there was the same amount of space around the bottom and sides of the word “Modern”, I increased the tops of the t’s “tart” to match the cap height of “Modern”. For my icon, I chose to have a geometric slightly abstracted toaster pastry with a Mondrian-esque work for icing. I did this so that it would be visually interesting enough to entice the viewer into analyzing it if exposed to it for more than a moment, but still simple enough that it can be recognized by a single glance. The icon itself is simple and includes only 2 parts in my opinion: the crust, with a more shaded yellow that resembles the color of baked pastries, and a colorful flair for icing resembling the works of a very recognizable artist. While the icon is smaller than the wordmark, the grouping of multiple colors together neatly contained within a single shape balances out the larger wordmark.
I also adopted a Mondrian-esque style for my menu. While my menu design did not adhere to the ‘form follow function’ ideology of the Bauhaus, it fit well with the general aesthetic of the design system. I chose to use a check-mark system employing a card with all of the ingredients you could choose, because that seemed like the easiest way to place orders for this type of food. Also, I chose to say "Modern Tarts" instead of "Modern Tart" only the menu to highlight upon the large variety of different tarts that can be created.
For my shirt I decided to go with a pocket shirt, because pocket shirts are more functional than a regular t-shirt, while still retaining the comfort of a t-shirt. I wanted to make my design stand out while also keeping the decoration to a minimum. To achieve this, I just put my wordmark on the pocket, and put the icon inside the pocket. This is to highlight the fact that the pocket serves a purpose, while also making a cute and simple design.
For my truck wrap, I wanted to go retro. I found a mockup of an antique Australian truck which fit with the old-school aesthetic I was planning on exploring for my truck design. I started out using more muted colors to match the muted colors of works from the time period, but all of these muted colors caused my logo to jump off of the surface due to its usage of bright colors. I settled on using the same bright colors, and using them in conjunction with different shapes to create a design that I thought did the Early Modernist style justice.
What I learned from this project was more of a realization than it was an active lesson. I enjoyed this project a great deal, mainly because I was able to work in a style that I very much enjoy working in. However, from now on I need to try and channel that same level of enjoyment and appreciation into everything I do, no matter the style. I am not going to get lucky and be able to work in the way I really want to work all of the time, but I am going to need to hold that work as highly as I hold this in terms of doing the subject and body of work justice. Basically, what I learned this time is to try and enjoy all of the work that I do as much as I enjoyed this project.
