Rock Salad

Developing a restaurant brand identity that's fun, inviting and full of personality

When small business owners Teri and Kathy asked me to help with the branding for their second restaurant and ghost kitchen, I was so excited. But when they told me this new restaurant would be serving creative gourmet salads with a rock-inspired name (yum!), I was totally in heaven!

If you know me well, you know that music is totally my thing. I grew up in a home where a lot of music variety was played, and classic rock often filled our family’s speakers (Aerosmith, Boston, Led Zeppelin, just to name a few.) I definitely saw that gritty, retro/vintage vibe jiving really well with this restaurant name and concept, so I took it from there! There’s plenty of vintage-inspired, handcrafted illustrations and elements here, paying homage to that era of classic rock (plus it all coordinates so well with its sister restaurant.) I eventually helped work the brand elements into food packaging, printed menus, website and more.

Rock Salad evolved from ghost kitchen to brick and mortar, and is located with its sister restaurant Knockout Melts, in Dubuque, Iowa.

After lots of discussion with the client, my creative process started with sketches. I loved the connection of handmade art, retro fonts and vintage music memorabilia, and worked them into custom illustrations.

With a brand identity in-place, we had some hard-working tools to incorporate into rollout collateral like packaging materials, staionery, custom stickers, menu design and more.

There was fun opportunity to work the brand identity into the menus themselves! A simple black/white printed takeout menu was an affordable option, and a hanging storefront menu pops within the restaurant.

The website design is clean and directs the user to easily see the menu and order online. Social media graphics makes their Facebook presence cohesive with all of the other materials we've created.