STUDIO BRIEF 4  SECOND STAGE DEVELOPMENT |

Looking at colours from my reference imagery, I began experimenting with the colour for the logo, which would then work over the rest of the identity - initially I began with a bigger palette, then focused it down to 2 colours + black and white. I felt a more minimal palette would keep the identity concise and unique. As you can see I decided to stay away from dark colours and focused upon lighter colours - 

This was my final colour palette - as mentioned earlier I was really drawn towards the light pink and blues - not the obvious 'Mexican' colours so think this would give it a much more unique feel. Still bold and eye-catching though - a nice harmonious colour range and keeps the identity simple. 

From here I then began thinking about the different logo variations that could be created using this palette  Primarily this was so that I could get a feel for what worked best and how the rest of the identity could develop from this - i.e. would I be using a white background for all the material or would it work the other way round, black or white onto a colour background, more than 1 colour per design, stuff like that. 

From experimentation I decided that the mark worked better primarily using black and white, and created variations of my 4 final logo options  - 

I then decided on the final printed material that I was going to produce. I felt considering this is a business that travels around the country it would be nice for customers to have something to be able to keep to remember them - as well as business cards it would be quite cool to have custom beer mats and loyalty cards to give out. I also want to develop the company by creating their own brand of hot sauce to sell. 

- Business Cards 
- Loyalty Cards
- Beer mats
- Food wrap 
- Hot Sauce Vinyls 

Promo Material:

- Flyers
- Posters.

Before developing this I had decided I wanted to bring some illustration into the identity of El Gusto. I was really inspired by the posters I had found as well as the street art I had been looking at, and felt it would suit the brand well. I put together another mood board and began developing some artwork.

Initial drawings - I think sugar skulls are a great signifier of Mexico so developed my own versions of these in a rough illustrative style, as well as some images bottles and food. My initial idea was to create a repeat pattern using these, could work well over the identity - food wrap and the van - 

Developing illustrations - I experimented with repeat patterns but really wasn't feeling it. It seemed very childish and just really unoriginal. I don't want to end up designing something like everything else out there. I still felt the illustrations were strong but needed to think about how they could interact more with the design and communication. I really want them to be doing something, not just dotted around randomly. 

I thought about the core idea - 'El Gusto' - 'TASTE'; somewhere for people to have a taste Mexico - embrace the unconventional street culture and energetic, vibrant cooking style of this fiery country. 

I decided to bring the illustrations together to create these sugar skull characters, indulging in the food and drink and breathing fire. I felt this could bring something exiting and engaging to the design material and could act almost as mascots for El Gusto. 

I experimented with these as well as an overprint text background - 

From here I then....