Gabbymstduios

American 50's rock inspired restaurant, Mels Diner, has been around for 74 years with over 22 restaurant chains located around the United States.

While they have made a name for themselves with their well known diner food and pies, they haven't taken the time to establish a cohesive brand and a marketable product for the consumers to really know what Mels is really all about.

Feeling hungry yet? Let's Dig in!

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Style Board

Mel’s diner has been around for 74 years known for its 50’s themed restaurant with a retro atmosphere and hot pies. Mel’s has been a booming business since attracting all kinds of customers, however; the diner never payed attention to its brand as a whole.

I want to create for them not only a new logo for them to stick to instead of using all ten existing ones, I want to create one cohesive logo that can be used for all of their chain businesses. I also want to create a packaging for their famous pies such as banana cream, apple, and pumpkin that can be found either at their restaurant or at Ralphs.

The elements I plan on using are the ink outlined coffee cup, pie, pumpkin, banana, and apple as a pattern for the depending variation. For example, the apple pie would have a coffee cup, apple, and pie as a continuous pattern used on the side of the box. It would be in an ink outlined style with a vibrant color.

The checkerboard strip is another simple design route I can use as well within the logo. Lastly, I will be using a triangle box for the individual slices of pie but the same design concepts can be applied to a regular square box as well.

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Logo Design

These are different variations I had in mind when thinking of a new logo for Mel's diner. I didn't want to remodel their brand completely so I kept the famous lowercase letters they use, the famous pink they use in some of their restaurant locations and handwritten typeface.

While the first row last logo felt more on brand with the 50's themed diner restaurant, It didn't feel right to make it pink completely since it may get lose in the packaging so instead....

I made the type black so it would stand out more on packaging and kept the pink checkerboard as a subtle connection to the brand.

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Sketches

By establishing the idea that the boxes should be triangle so the consumer can take home an individual slice of Mel's pies whether it be from the restaurant or market, I had to figure out ways for the design to interact with the structure.

Design A portrays the original idea from the style board by having the pen sketched illustrations of the different variants on the side of the boxes and having the logo and flavor on the front of the box.

Design B is a more simple approach to the boxes by having a checkerboard strip on the sides of the box and the logo and flavor on top.

While both boxes both have potential, Design A showed more potential because of the fun patterns and connection to the brand as a whole compared to Design B that only showed a glimpse of what Mels really is.

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Design Elements