Both of the terms “brand” and “concept” are thrown around loosely, but what do they really mean? Knowing the difference can help you clearly define your business, its goals, its marketing and help make decisions down the road.

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La Bonne Vie (The Good Life) is 100%, undoubtedly French in style. This dessert shop’s interiors are soft, feminine and leverage Roccoco style throughout. The packaging is simple and accentuates the brand’s identity as seen through the interior experience. This confections shop is well designed on every facet making it a great case study for what can be done when details are designed. Designed by StruckAxiom

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Who doesn’t love ice cream? And how can you resist picking up a cone when they’re wrapped in such an awesome package? Wink designed the Honey & Mackie’s ice scream shop brand to be whimsical, campy and sort of circus-esque. With a vintage color palette and strong, classic typography, the Honey & Mackies brand stands out and pops. It looks super yummy too.

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Earthy and simple, the brand identity for Villandry Kitchen uses the textures of natural woods and the products and goods themselves to define their brand. The brand is a culmination of packaging and a kitchen-style restaurant. Everything is clean and simple; easy to read and understand, but it stands out on it’s own as a warm, inviting experience. Designed by Edge & Barrett, they have this to say:

With a food store, bakery, restaurant and bar, Villandry has grown to become a celebrated culinary institution located on Great Portland Street. Edge and Barrett were approached to help extended their gourmet heritage with Villandry Kitchen, a new concept in high street eating and shopping.

Using Villandry’s history as inspiration, Edge and Barrett designed a heritage led logo with a modern edge that was adaptable enough to be applied to all arms of the business. As well as menu design and other brand literature, we were also involved in creating the interior concept in association with the architects and designing all external signage and marketing material to launch this new venture.

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The design team at Mucca put together this quaint, but detailed brand package for Butterfield Market. It features unorthodox colors mixed with great use of typography and graphic treatments. The brand’s epicenter is a seal-like “B” that’s reminiscent of the same style found on currency. Very well done.

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In the spirit of Halloween I’m posting up the work for Grimm Brothers Brewhouse by the guys at Ten Fold Collective. It’s an amazing brand identity and packaging design initiative featuring visual metaphors from the Brothers Grimm fairytales. The identity is black letter and Germanic in nature supported by modern illustrations that look similar in style to Christopher Moore book covers. The entire package is fresh and new. It has that level of wit and execution that make it stand off the shelves. Well executed.

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Burgatory touts a fun, tongue-in-cheek brand. Using the obvious visual cues from religious connotations, the brand plays out with fun and slightly ominous brand identity. Wall to Wall Studios designed the identity to be racy, fun, and play up visuals that send home the brand in the mind.

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Today saw a huge uproar in the designer community. Moleskine, a company long known for classic note/sketchbooks, launched a “competition” for designers to design a new logo for their blog. Many of you may think, “so what?” The problem is that the design profession has been plagued by companies devaluing design and demanding “spec work.” Roughly defined, “spec work” is when a designer is asked to design without promise of compensation. Imagine if you were allowed to take home 50 cars, then only pay for one, but keep the rest. It’s exactly like that. Again, “so what?”

Moleskine successfully pissed off it’s primary audience (designers) by blatantly devaluing their profession. People are currently posting links to purchase competing journals. They’re pissed. They’re denouncing the product and brand. Judging by the 180+ comments on their facebook page as well as the buzz generated all over the internet, the damage is a PR nightmare. There’s a lesson to be learned here: Do not bite the hand that feeds.

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The branding for the restaurant El Burro is top notch. The mark itself is so interesting. The only gripe I have is how well it works at smaller sizes. I think this is about as small as you can go which may not be a big deal, but it’s something to consider with restaurant brands and branding in general. I love how the brand is accentuated through classic Mexican tattoo art and iconography. Leaning heavy on the imagery from Dia Del Los Muertos, the brand has a very fun and alive style about it. Designed by Monday.

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The design team at Savvy pushed the boundaries with this sushi and sake bar branding. Instead of an expected play on Japanese colors and fish iconography, they went completely modern. It’s clean. It’s fun. The typography is excellent and the way it plays out through the other brand touch points is excellent.

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