Final Design

The Challenge: It has been 10 years since Italian Street Kitchen was launched and It was time for a refresh. Italian Street Kitchen is a Italian restaurant brand aimed at primarily young professionals late 20s-early 40s. They offer authentic but modern take on Italian cuisines that honours Italian culinary traditions but is not afraid to take risks on innovating new flavours.

I was briefed with refreshing the brand without too much change on the logo. Primarily focusing on the packaging, colour palette and new illustrations.

Old Branding

The old branding took inspiration from traditional oil and watercolour painting as well as the she-wolf icon from the myth of Romulus and Remus. The owners wanted to modernise and bolden the brand while still keeping it friendly, accessible and feminine. The ‘Isabella’ brand persona is based on the chic, young Italian woman who moves through the world with beauty, grace and confidence.

The team and I compiled a mood board taking inspirations from Italian lifestyle images and our ‘Isabella’ persona. We also looked at Italian tiles and the lino print techniques

Conceptual and Design Process

We started developing custom illustrations and working on the branding elements. We decided that colours should be eye catching but playful and feminine. We should also utilise the whole space of the packaging, so for example, pasta noodles that go around the whole bowl or Italian scenery that goes from the front to the back of the carry bags. We started playing with designing pizza boxes like they are Italian tiles so they will look great placed side to side or stacked in store.

Final Design:

The team wanted to keep the original fonts in the logo. It was decided to simplify the logo - removing the she wolf and incorporating the fresh new colour palette.

For the packaging, the final feedback from the food team was that they wanted more colours to be included in the bag illustrations, so I incorporated additional colours into the lino print inspired illustrations and designed them so they flow from the front of the bag to the back. A similar approach is taken for the bowls.