Mrs. Snyder’s Market Cafe has a clear mission: become a food destination in quaint Old New Castle and in turn, ignite an economic revival in the once thriving community. Mrs. Snyder, a very real person and key member of the ownership group, built a reputation in local circles with her casual spirit, delicious homemade creations, and unending support for local farms and their seasonal products. Her Market Cafe is a place where she can share her passion and where you can make yourself at home. The owners approached us to develop a comprehensive brand identity for the Cafe, capturing the essence of this larger than life persona, while also honoring the rich history of Old New Castle.
In order for the passion for food and people to come through, we needed to craft an authentic brand story that could pull people in from all walks of life. We dove head first into a number of exercises to help the ownership group express their vision and preferences while also building consensus around a name that would resonate. We wrote a brand platform to guide us collectively through the creative process. What resulted was an identity centered around an idiosyncratic persona with a dose of Americana and warmly expressed through tailored messaging, a custom hand-drawn logotype, farm crate inspired stamps, old world etchings of everyday food-centric objects, and little bit of red, white & blue.
We crafted a custom hand-drawn logotype to convey a personal, warm, and welcoming feeling. The market cafe stamp is inspired by farmer's market crates. Etchings in the colonial-style provide a deep historic connection with Old New Castle to the newly renovated restaurant. We created a flexible pattern system with these etchings that are used throughout the visual identity—on collateral and in the physical space.
During our brand development process, we crafted slogans based on the cafe's core values which eventually found their way onto buttons, cards, and the website.
A flexible point-of-sale system was designed—labels, tags, menus, stickers, and tent cards—to enhance and imprint the experience at every touch point. We continued to build brand awareness for Mrs. Snyder's by developing signage, email marketing templates, social media skins, and apparel.
Mrs. Snyder wasn't simply old school. We extended her presence to a quick-stop website for daily specials, market mainstays, hours and location with directions, editable social media graphics, and a custom email template for deals delivered fresh to your inbox.
Untuck won an American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Philadelphia Design Award for this project.
