Studio Brief 1 - OUDG403 - Logotype

Logotype - Pret a Manger //

Walking round Leeds trying to find a brand that I could rebrand was more difficult than I imagined, there were many companies that I would want too rebrand but I just didn't feel the other companies I looked at, represented me as well (ethics of the company). So after much consideration I choose Pret a Manger, even though the current brand doesn't need changing, I feel that the brand could just be revolutionised so that it is bought into 2015. 

Brand Research 

Who is the company? Pret a Manger is a sandwich shop that has come from a small independent shop into a world wide brand, which cafes in New York, London and Hong Kong. Why have they become so big? They are all for sustainability and using fresh and economical ingredients in there food which is a ket selling point for they as a brand, because in the day and age we are in now many people can understand why they are doing this. 

What do they do? Well its fairly obvious, they are a sandwich bar, with a barista coffee too. They are selling the idea of a small sandwich shop but they are on a very big scale, but it works, even the current branding gives that feel. Other than the exterior of the shop which isn't very eye catching, as it is fairly similar too competitors Costa Coffee. 

Target audience? If I was too look at the target audience as an age range I would say that it is very varied, from anywhere from the ages of 16 + purely because anyone can but something from Pret a Manger. But I say that but it is on the more expensive side so the target market needs to be people who have disposable income. But the store will take a lot of income from curtain people like tourist and business men, specially in inner-city areas. But as a whole I think Pret a Manger has a very wide target market and appeals to many people from all sorts of backgrounds.

Where does/will the logo appear? As you can see from the image below, the Pret a Manger logo/branding appears in a variety of places from their store front and signage too the packing for the food and drinks. As well as this, the logo/typeface appears on the advertising campaigns so the new logo needs to have the same impact and vibrancy as the current type. 

Initial Ideas & Development

Here are my first sketches that I did to gather my ideas together after I had done the research. Doing the sketches help me too understand what direction I want to go in with the design on the logo. I looked at a number of different styles of logos from just plain type to bringing in symbolism etc. From sketches I wanted to stay with just type but I wanted the type to be in such a way that at any size people could see what it was. 

Final Resoultion 

As well on the design board I have show my development ideas for my logo, I feel that these ideas are not as strong as the original logo. But it could make a interesting update to there branding. One of the reasons I wanted to rebrand Pret was purely for the main logo because I enjoy the design of the rest of the company but I felt the logo needed updating. In a way I think that I have achieved an updated look by making it more friendly for the public to use the shop other than the smaller market that uses the store. 

Evolution 

If I was to improve on my final designs I would have made the kerning bigger on the negative space design as not many people saw that it showed the "a" in-between the two words. 

I also feel that I could experimented with more colours, as some of my feedback from the crit as that I should have look at using more economical/organic colours because of the brands ethics. This was a very good point and if I was to experiment with colour theory more than I did, I think the branding would be much stronger as the public would appreciate the change in colour and they would be able to see what the colour represented.