Arguably London’s road meals scene has grow to be much less a ‘scene’, extra a community of lengthy queues sprawling their approach throughout the capital quicker than you may say ‘SEVEN kilos! For some strawberries!’ From Borough to Barbican’s Whitecross Road, Spitalfields to Southbank, Camden to Covent Backyard; the menus are international, the costs hefty, the hype palpable, and the branding overwhelmingly forgettable. Certain, folks rave over ‘empanadas’, or ‘apple crumble’ within the case of numerous People in search of out some authentically bland, sizzling, stodgy English fare. However I’ve but to listen to folks cite an precise model.
Maybe due to this design overhaul by How&How (Chester Zoo & Hometree), Yum Bun is ready to alter all that. Established in 2014 by Lisa Meyer-Jones as a humble meals truck, Yum Bun was considered one of London’s first road meals merchants to focus completely on bao, the East Asian, dumpling-esque uniquely pillowy little parcels of hotter-than-the-sun pleasure. It quickly advanced right into a pop-up earlier than turning into a fixture at road meals big-guns like Previous Spitalfields Market in East London and Covent Gardens’ Seven Dials Market.
Its evolution right into a extra mature, London-wide entity meant that Yum Bun’s branding additionally wanted to evolve – grow to be a wee bit extra grown up, future-facing, and slick. Nevertheless, that doesn’t imply it’s bereft of enjoyable: this work is bizarre in all the precise locations; defiantly optimistic; playful and bubbly however by no means at the price of underscoring the model’s heritage as a top quality, bao OG with some critical heritage within the capital.
How&How landed on the inventive idea Bounce and Rise because the strategic grounding for the complete model idea and visible id. This easy however iconic word-duo succinctly sums up Yum Bun in numerous methods: it describes what it sells (fluffy, joyful, mild, fluffy), the way it approaches meals (comforting, really feel good), its angle (cheeky, revolutionary, at all times optimistic), and its forward-thinking, business-savvy outlook.
The venture is a masterclass in brevity at its greatest. First that idea, then the brand: it actually beams at you, articulating just about all the pieces steered by Bounce and Rise in a singular graphic masterstroke. ‘The brand new brand riffs off Japanese Hanko stamps with an added dawn aperture, to imitate Yum Bun’s fusion of Japanese craft and optimistic belly-rubbing heat’, Cat How, studio founder explains.
‘We additionally created typography codecs to mirror completely different sights and sounds of the kitchen, corresponding to “Steamy”; “Scorching”; and “Goodness”.’ The splendid new wordmark was developed from the bombastic experimental all-caps font Ogre Mono Grotesk by Brazil’s Leme Studio. Its spherical, daring types evoke the buns it represents, whereas delicate refinements just like the rising arch (a transparent nod to each Hanko stamps and the solar itself) convey optimism with out veering into cliché. The ‘Y’ even provides us just a little smile. There are moments of fragility within the thinner joints of the ‘Y’, ‘M’ and ‘N’, however total, the brand’s vitality holds. It’s punchy and exact, with sufficient visible heat to stay inviting.
How&How’s selection of secondary fonts can also be very sensible certainly. The studio opted for Faro by Swiss foundry Luzi Sort – a sans serif font with not simply completely different weights, however completely different feelings. ‘Faro encompasses two distinct moods: Fortunate and Unhappy, permitting you to convey completely different sentiments in your texts’, the foundry explains. Each are used as supporting fonts for Yum Bun, preserving issues easy however only a twinge off-kilter in a approach that provides layers of expression with out slipping into caricature. Inside Faro, there’s a lot that chimes with the overarching model idea: smiling counters within the lowercase ‘a’, playful flicks within the ‘G’, and buoyant arms on the ‘T’ and ‘F’ lend a definite persona.
Whereas persona is definitely by no means missing throughout just about all Yum Bun’s model belongings, with one thing this enjoyable it’s nice to see a mascot deployed with such confidence. We’re seeing a little bit of a latest resurgence in mascotry – rescuing these oft-maligned creatures from the doldrums of lazy children’ manufacturers and outdatedness and exhibiting that when completed effectively, characters have a really highly effective place in a model id, grown-ups be damned. Simply take a look at Wildish & Co’s charming work for seemingly pedestal residence companies within the form of Ding.
Yum Bun’s mascot is, as anybody might have guessed, very fucking smiley. Unofficially christened ‘Bao’ within the absence of formal naming, he’s spherical, cheerful, and ever-so-slightly dazed (as if in a meals coma, quite than something to do with Xanax). ‘The signature model bao goes full-blown fluffy buddy’, as How places it.
Crucially, and we’ll come to this once more in a bit – he’s deployed with restraint. As huge and daring and cheery as he’s, Bao by no means dominates. Like all of the cleverest folks/entities, he isn’t at all times making himself identified, however when he does, he actually brings it. Bao’s appearances are sparing, clever: he provides emotional texture quite than blithely bellowing good cheer to anybody in earshot.
The color palette leans into heat, with dawn oranges, yolky yellows, and calming pinks that echo the comfort-food-meets-craft ethos; whereas animation and movement design carry the ‘Bounce and Rise’ technique to life. On-line, textual content steams into focus, wafting throughout the display with playful strains like ‘Take a bao’ and ‘We rise to the problem’ and in doing so, proving that meals puns, when well-timed, nonetheless have legs.
However again to that restraint. Regardless of the puns, How&How has demonstrated right here that holding again doesn’t imply taking part in it protected, or preserving issues straight laced: it reveals that the true enjoyable is in figuring out what to huge up and what to pare again.
In lesser fingers, this model might have toppled into wince-inducing ‘development weblog’ territory: the gradients! The mascot! SO INSTAGRAMMABLE. However Yum Bun’s new look might by no means be seen to be fashion-following, try-hard, or clichéd. The tone of voice is cheeky however not cringey. The movement design is partaking with out being frenetic. The mascot provides appeal with out infantilising the model. How&How has proven a degree of design maturity that retains issues buoyant quite than bombastic, however which is rarely, ever, afraid to have a superb time.
Arguably London’s road meals scene has grow to be much less a ‘scene’, extra a community of lengthy queues sprawling their approach throughout the capital quicker than you may say ‘SEVEN kilos! For some strawberries!’ From Borough to Barbican’s Whitecross Road, Spitalfields to Southbank, Camden to Covent Backyard; the menus are international, the costs hefty, the hype palpable, and the branding overwhelmingly forgettable. Certain, folks rave over ‘empanadas’, or ‘apple crumble’ within the case of numerous People in search of out some authentically bland, sizzling, stodgy English fare. However I’ve but to listen to folks cite an precise model.
Maybe due to this design overhaul by How&How (Chester Zoo & Hometree), Yum Bun is ready to alter all that. Established in 2014 by Lisa Meyer-Jones as a humble meals truck, Yum Bun was considered one of London’s first road meals merchants to focus completely on bao, the East Asian, dumpling-esque uniquely pillowy little parcels of hotter-than-the-sun pleasure. It quickly advanced right into a pop-up earlier than turning into a fixture at road meals big-guns like Previous Spitalfields Market in East London and Covent Gardens’ Seven Dials Market.
Its evolution right into a extra mature, London-wide entity meant that Yum Bun’s branding additionally wanted to evolve – grow to be a wee bit extra grown up, future-facing, and slick. Nevertheless, that doesn’t imply it’s bereft of enjoyable: this work is bizarre in all the precise locations; defiantly optimistic; playful and bubbly however by no means at the price of underscoring the model’s heritage as a top quality, bao OG with some critical heritage within the capital.
How&How landed on the inventive idea Bounce and Rise because the strategic grounding for the complete model idea and visible id. This easy however iconic word-duo succinctly sums up Yum Bun in numerous methods: it describes what it sells (fluffy, joyful, mild, fluffy), the way it approaches meals (comforting, really feel good), its angle (cheeky, revolutionary, at all times optimistic), and its forward-thinking, business-savvy outlook.
The venture is a masterclass in brevity at its greatest. First that idea, then the brand: it actually beams at you, articulating just about all the pieces steered by Bounce and Rise in a singular graphic masterstroke. ‘The brand new brand riffs off Japanese Hanko stamps with an added dawn aperture, to imitate Yum Bun’s fusion of Japanese craft and optimistic belly-rubbing heat’, Cat How, studio founder explains.
‘We additionally created typography codecs to mirror completely different sights and sounds of the kitchen, corresponding to “Steamy”; “Scorching”; and “Goodness”.’ The splendid new wordmark was developed from the bombastic experimental all-caps font Ogre Mono Grotesk by Brazil’s Leme Studio. Its spherical, daring types evoke the buns it represents, whereas delicate refinements just like the rising arch (a transparent nod to each Hanko stamps and the solar itself) convey optimism with out veering into cliché. The ‘Y’ even provides us just a little smile. There are moments of fragility within the thinner joints of the ‘Y’, ‘M’ and ‘N’, however total, the brand’s vitality holds. It’s punchy and exact, with sufficient visible heat to stay inviting.
How&How’s selection of secondary fonts can also be very sensible certainly. The studio opted for Faro by Swiss foundry Luzi Sort – a sans serif font with not simply completely different weights, however completely different feelings. ‘Faro encompasses two distinct moods: Fortunate and Unhappy, permitting you to convey completely different sentiments in your texts’, the foundry explains. Each are used as supporting fonts for Yum Bun, preserving issues easy however only a twinge off-kilter in a approach that provides layers of expression with out slipping into caricature. Inside Faro, there’s a lot that chimes with the overarching model idea: smiling counters within the lowercase ‘a’, playful flicks within the ‘G’, and buoyant arms on the ‘T’ and ‘F’ lend a definite persona.
Whereas persona is definitely by no means missing throughout just about all Yum Bun’s model belongings, with one thing this enjoyable it’s nice to see a mascot deployed with such confidence. We’re seeing a little bit of a latest resurgence in mascotry – rescuing these oft-maligned creatures from the doldrums of lazy children’ manufacturers and outdatedness and exhibiting that when completed effectively, characters have a really highly effective place in a model id, grown-ups be damned. Simply take a look at Wildish & Co’s charming work for seemingly pedestal residence companies within the form of Ding.
Yum Bun’s mascot is, as anybody might have guessed, very fucking smiley. Unofficially christened ‘Bao’ within the absence of formal naming, he’s spherical, cheerful, and ever-so-slightly dazed (as if in a meals coma, quite than something to do with Xanax). ‘The signature model bao goes full-blown fluffy buddy’, as How places it.
Crucially, and we’ll come to this once more in a bit – he’s deployed with restraint. As huge and daring and cheery as he’s, Bao by no means dominates. Like all of the cleverest folks/entities, he isn’t at all times making himself identified, however when he does, he actually brings it. Bao’s appearances are sparing, clever: he provides emotional texture quite than blithely bellowing good cheer to anybody in earshot.
The color palette leans into heat, with dawn oranges, yolky yellows, and calming pinks that echo the comfort-food-meets-craft ethos; whereas animation and movement design carry the ‘Bounce and Rise’ technique to life. On-line, textual content steams into focus, wafting throughout the display with playful strains like ‘Take a bao’ and ‘We rise to the problem’ and in doing so, proving that meals puns, when well-timed, nonetheless have legs.
However again to that restraint. Regardless of the puns, How&How has demonstrated right here that holding again doesn’t imply taking part in it protected, or preserving issues straight laced: it reveals that the true enjoyable is in figuring out what to huge up and what to pare again.
In lesser fingers, this model might have toppled into wince-inducing ‘development weblog’ territory: the gradients! The mascot! SO INSTAGRAMMABLE. However Yum Bun’s new look might by no means be seen to be fashion-following, try-hard, or clichéd. The tone of voice is cheeky however not cringey. The movement design is partaking with out being frenetic. The mascot provides appeal with out infantilising the model. How&How has proven a degree of design maturity that retains issues buoyant quite than bombastic, however which is rarely, ever, afraid to have a superb time.
