NO BULL
Sandwich
Designing a brand for straight shooters
Backstory
Client name : Pepperjax GrillLocation : Nebraska, USAWhat they do :
Pepperjax Grill is a Philly cheesesteak restaurant chain located in the midwest. Serving neighborhoods around Winsconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. It is one of the most successful Philly cheesesteak restaurants outside of Philadelphia.Once our client finished his duties from our successful collaboration with Qdoba, he moved on to a new restaurant business in disarray. With the success of Qdoba, our client wanted to bring the same rigor to Pepperjax Grill and make it one of the significant Philly cheesesteak restaurants to compete in the midwest.
To achieve their goal, we brought the same approach for familiarity— redefining the brand, re-focusing our target customer, building a brand persona, and redesigning its look for the modern age. We must bring personality to the brand that will resonate and be the ideal place for their customers to go and hang in.
Solution
We used our brand persona called Frank as our guide to building the new brand. We created a genuine and straightforward brand based on Frank's personality through the simplicity of a bold type and clear graphics because Frank doesn't like complexity. The simple color system includes a vibrant red-orange to visualize the heat from the flat grill represented as the bar in the logo. We recommended that their imagery feel authentic by leaving crumbs, oil stains, and sauce drips as part of the composition. We also recommended using texturized materials such as ink stamps, craft paper, and twine inspired by Philadelphia's Reading Market and butcher shops. The combination of graphics and materials in the space created the "Friends of Frank" to hang out in the right spot.
Sandwich (recommended approach to imagery) and sticker
Mobile ordering app concept
Sauce jars
Graphic posters
Bag and cups
Promotional posters
Menu handout design
Business card concept
Interior graphics and food truck concepts
Exterior signage concept
Did it pop?
Pepperjax Grill relaunched the brand with the new visual system and opened up more regional stores. They did some modifications to the system, but overall, the design remained intact. Sadly, we did not have a hand in the store design, but they now have 32 locations in 2022, spanning across Nebraska and neighboring states.
Process
As a rebrand, we worked with strategists to figure out what they represent and their targets. We also received the analytics work that helped inform what we should do with the brand. We hosted workshops to determine which direction they wanted the brand to focus on, leading us to our brand story, target, and persona. Our brand persona is called "Frank," and our target, "Friends of Frank," who we envisioned as the unpretentious, no bullshit type of crowd who wants to eat something delicious without the bells and whistles.
The client shared their analytics research which informed our work in bringing emotion to the brand
Workshop with the client team
Old version of the brand
Pictures from our food trip in PhillyInspired by philly
We also did a tour of the famous Philly cheesesteak shops in Philadelphia. We found it insightful that the most successful brands have textures and a certain rawness in how they represent their brand which we applied in our exploration.
Inspiration
With our brand persona in mind, we looked at bold, simple, yet full of personality designs. We found creations are a mix of craft and modernity that feels absolute because Frank is straightforward, does not want complexity, and does not like "noise."
Exploration concentrated on simplicity and clarity—bold logos, simple type, all-caps, and minimum color combinations based on our learnings from the competitive audit. During our design exploration, we did not want to muddle the system with too many food images as we reminded them that the physical food in the restaurant would do its job. If we use food images, it will be minimal and used in tactical applications. Therefore, we recommended that they not use any food images in the space and only for tactical purposes.
Project squad
Designed with ProphetPeter Dixon, Partner • Baron Santiago, Design Director/Designer • Sarita Walsh, Senior Designer • Erin Fraser, Senior Designer • Josh Epperson, Concepting/Writer • Frank, Our north starI was responsible for leading the design exploration of Sarita and Erin. They chose the visual system I designed for the brand and developed it further with the design team with guidance from Peter.