Project overview

Takenaka was planning to open a food truck in 2020 Spring. I'm getting involved as a designer for their own food truck and some graphic design around their branding.

Key things to build brands

Since Vancouver already has a lot of Japanese meals, We have gotten to make something different from existing market images.

Their image was "A little luxury sushi-restaurant transform as food truck". Thanks to all the menu quite look not just delicious but artistic, I thought it'd be able to catch young-generation foodie's eyes. Hence, I applied eye-catching Japanese patterns with hexagon, which is a symbol of fortune as a tradition in Japan on their foodtruck, like a Japanese Fusuma(sliding screen) or partitions.

Style

The graphic for their branding is coming from Japanese blue. Japan has very popular and traditional kinds of potteries for a long time, such as Hasami-Yaki, Koimari, Kutani-Yaki, and so on. Usually these kinds of pottery have blue-colored pattern which comes from Japanese indigo. therefore I thought the indigo color should be a good color to introduce them and make impression to the people about Takenaka's food truck.

Graphic Design

To improve Instagram Marketing

Since most of our customers heard about us through Instagram or suggestions from friends for the first time, Instagram was the key to do marketing.

I encouraged them to sell their products by providing graphics for campaigns, sometimes with physical fliers for retail sales. especially when the occasional or seasonal event has happened, the sales have increased by posting about events, together with graphics on Instagram.

Retail Product Design

Since Takenaka started to produce frozen ready-to-eat products, I created packages for them. I applied icon-like illustrations with subtle overlays of the brand monogram in the minimalistic package to express our brand's overview under the limited budget.

Reflections and next steps

Design-wise, I am always considering is how can I share the spirits and stories through the touchpoints. though, I am also considering what is the best decision if I can balanced costs and performance. Although I am trying to keep communicate often, sometimes I feel even I might have been able to talk more efficiently, or more effectively. Since this project is in progress under the pandemic, I am still keeping an experiment about what is the most reasonable way to communicate with keeping their and customer's satisfaction.