Client - Kuu Van Cha
(Chain of Chinese Nanyang Cuisine)
Kuu Van Cha (KVC) is a chain of restaurants across the different states of Malaysia. They specialize in Chinese Nanyang Cuisine. In a sector with fierce competition, they are not able to compete with other Chinese restaurants that also has chains internationally. In our discovery call, they expressed concerns regarding their logo and visual identity.
Problem #1: Regarding their logo, the main issue was that it loses legibility when scaled down, the smaller details are lost. They also have a second logo, 'Tea Garden'. Some of their off-the-rack products (coffee, chili sauce) are branded with KVC, and some with Tea Garden. Their clients do not know that Tea Garden and KVC belong under the same umbrella. They are clear that they do not want to rebrand or move away from the KVC logo.
Problem #2: On visual identity, they did not have a consistent design language across their products. Each design looks different from the rest, and they wanted something that is more consistent across all products, stores, and printables.
The goal:
1) Improve functionality & responsiveness of the KVC logo.
2) To create a strong, consistent brand, to improve recognizability.
3) To cater more towards the Chinese market, strengthen brand loyalty.
4) Make their off-the-rack products look more premium.
Original Logos below:
What their off-the-rack products currently look like:
What they want it to look like, aka, the inspiration:
Keeping in mind the brand essence of the KVC above, we first made their logo responsive. Their logo now works at big scale for restaurant signages, but also at small scale for chopsticks and packaging materials. Instead of trying to fit a logo into a space that is too small or crowded, they can simply use a different version for maximum visual impact and clarity.
We also created secondary logo lockups in Mandarin letters, with the aim of speaking more to their primary target market, the Chinese people of Malaysia.
Now that the logo was done and responsive, it was time to improve their visual identity and brand recognition. For that, we created four sets of patterns for Kuu Van Cha, derived from their logo:
Now that the visual identity was sorted, it was time to move on to the off-the-rack products.
“We want it to look more premium. We also want to release more variations of sambal (chili sauce) in the future”, said the Kuu Van Cha owner.
Here are our proposed options for their three products: Chili sauce, coffee, and frozen food.
We had a great time focusing our time and minds on strengthening the KVC brand. The owner was amazed to see the difference between the old and the proposed product concepts and was really keen on pushing this to the market.
Unfortunately, the KVC board of directors did not come into the agreement on giving this the green light. We wish KVC all the best for their future endeavors.
Let us know how we did in the comments below.
