Restaurant and street food logo design for three food brands

Techcelerant designed logos for three food businesses: Casa Pollo, a chicken restaurant; Pizzeria Super Cheese, a pizza shop; and the Michalovce Street Food Festival, an outdoor food event in the Slovak town of Michalovce. Each one needed a mark that people recognize from across a street or a crowded festival field, and that still looks right printed small on a menu or a takeout box.

The client

These are three separate clients with one thing in common. They sell food to people who decide quickly. A diner walking past a storefront, a family scrolling a delivery app, or a festival visitor scanning a row of stalls gives a sign a second or two. The logo has to say what the place serves and how it feels in that time.

Casa Pollo serves chicken in a casual, family setting. Pizzeria Super Cheese is a neighborhood pizza shop with a playful name. The Michalovce Street Food Festival brings food vendors together in town for a public event, so its logo has to sit on posters, banners, wristbands and social posts.

The problem

Each client came to us with a name and little else. None had a mark they could put on a sign, a box or a website.

The shared risk with food logos is sameness. Chicken places reach for a rooster. Pizza places reach for a slice and a mustache. Festival logos often turn into a pile of clip art. We wanted each logo to use a familiar food cue, because that helps people decide fast, and then give it one twist that belongs only to that business.

The practical problems were just as real. Restaurant logos get printed on cheap paper bags, embroidered on aprons and shrunk to app icons. A festival logo gets screen-printed on fabric and seen from far away. Fine detail and thin gradients do not survive that.

What we built

• Casa Pollo: a yellow house shape with a white chicken head cut into it, so the name ("chicken house") is drawn as a picture. Below it, heavy brown lettering spells CASA, with the C carved into a knife and the A carved into a fork. POLLO sits in yellow underneath.
• Pizzeria Super Cheese: an oval badge with a double gold outline. PIZZERIA arcs across the top in dark capitals, a row of small stars sits under it, and SUPER CHEESE runs along the bottom in spaced-out letters. In the middle is a line drawing of a pizza slice with cheese dripping off the edges, which is the whole point of the name.
• Michalovce Street Food Festival: bold, rounded yellow lettering that looks hand-painted, with STREET stacked over FOOD. MICHALOVCE and FESTIVAL curve above and below in small dark capitals, and two yellow dots close the circle.

Every logo was delivered in full color, one color and reversed versions, with spacing rules and the color values the clients' printers and sign makers need.

Design decisions

For Casa Pollo we chose warm yellow and dark brown. Yellow reads as cheerful and appetizing, and brown grounds it and recalls roasted food. The knife and fork inside the letters only show up when you look twice. People who notice them remember them, and people who don't still read the word CASA without trouble.

For Pizzeria Super Cheese we used a single gold line weight throughout. A one-color line drawing prints cleanly on a pizza box lid with a one-color press, which is how most pizza boxes are printed. The badge shape also gives the shop a ready-made sticker and stamp.

For the festival we used one strong color and loose, friendly lettering. Street food is informal, so the type looks drawn by hand. The letters are thick enough to stay readable on a banner seen from the far end of a square, and the circular layout fits round stickers, badges and social profile images.

The result

Each business now has a logo it can put on a storefront, a menu, packaging and a website without redrawing anything. Casa Pollo has a mark that explains its name in a picture. Pizzeria Super Cheese has a badge that works as a box stamp, a sticker and a sign. The festival has a logo that looks at home on a poster, a vendor banner and a phone screen.

Choosing colors for a food brand? Our guide to color psychology in branding covers how we think about it. To start a logo for your restaurant or event, see our branding service or get in touch.