Trucks that grab attention.
Not long ago I had the great pleasure of working with one of my favorite clients. She was interested in starting a new food truck business and was looking for something fun that would attract lots of attention. The direction of the business was focused on her two dogs, Rock and Lou. I knew as soon as I saw pictures of them we were going to have a lot of fun with this project. I couldn’t wait to get started.
Designing a cartoon logo.
A good logo always starts with sketches. We went through quite a few rounds of sketches before we found the best solution but that’s all part of the design process. I had lots of fun ideas and pitched quite a few different directions. Once we found one that worked we began refining it until we had just the right look. I do my work mainly on a computer and draw all my sketches using a Cintiq tablet. The Cintiq allows me to explore many different directions quickly and efficiently. Once the artwork is ready I share my sketches with my client using a shared Dropbox folder. Dropbox does a great job of allowing us to share all our files effortlessly, keeping everyone up to date and on the same page.
Designing a Vehicle Wrap
Of course, the biggest part of a food truck business is the truck design itself. As we were designing the logo my client had another team busy working on the actual truck. Fitting a truck with a full kitchen is a BIG job. My job was to make that truck looked great when it rolled out onto the road. My client lives in San Diego so visiting the building site was not going to be possible for me. Instead, I requested a front, side(s) and back photo of the truck as the building team continued their work. Once I had the photos I popped them into Adobe Illustrator so I could create a rough template. All trucks are created a little differently so having the photos from the build team let me know where all the windows, vents and other variables would be. Knowing the location of those things is important so that later when it’s time to wrap the truck the design looks it’s best. The last thing you want is for a logo to be unreadable or a phone number to get lost in a vent. There are a lot of variables with a truck like this so using a blank template of the internet is not a good solution and is going to cause a lot more problems than it solves.
Marketing with a new logo
Marketing is a huge part of any business. Making marketing fun is my business. We had some great mascot characters so the next step was to get them out there in front of the public. Characters like these present a great opportunity to interact with customers and anyone who sees the truck, after all when you see something like this rolling down the highway it makes a big impression. My plan was to grab these characters from the logo and give them a story. That story would allow them to interact with each other and all the new customers who would see them as they drove around town.
There are a lot of components to marketing a food truck that people don’t always think about at first but a food truck is a restaurant business just like any other. A restaurant needs menus, signs, business cards, merchandising, etc and so did we. We had a great time using the characters to help us sell the many different aspects of this business and had lots of fun doing it. If you are interested in seeing how a great log can change your business give me a call or drop me a line and I would be happy to discuss possibilities.