NANYANG
Nanyang is a South-Eastern Asian restaurant in North Sydney's Hawkers Village. I was tasked with creating a brand identity to reflect the authentic food they offer. The majority of dishes are Malaysian street food classics and as such research in to the signage found on the streets of Malaysia. This research showed a vibrant DIY style that often sees a few common traits; English and Chinese texts, basic fonts, stretched type to fit areas, a strong use of primary colours with a lot of red and blue text on white and also text made using vinyl cut letters.
Design and Direction: Harley Johnston
Intern: Victor Luo
Studio and Restaurant Photography: Robin Hearfield
Below: Some of the image research from Malaysian signage
FRESH INGREDIENTS
The word Nanyang translates to the South Sea in Mandarin and relates to the fertile region, the owners wanted to convey the freshness of the ingredients used in Nanyang dishes. We came up with the idea to purchase the most common ingredients and use them to create an asset library by stamping them, scanning them and vectorising them.
LOGO
The logo consists of an abstract N made from the fresh ingredients along with the Chinese symbols 南洋 representing the name. Three different sizes were created with different levels of detail depending on the use size.
MENUS & PRINT
Menus and print item used the styles based on research with lots of Chinese translations in red and english in blue, sometimes reversed out. The type mainly uses default Helvetica and System Chinese fonts, stretched to make the most of the space. The ingredients feature throughout as patterns.
SHOP MENU & GRAPHICS
The shop interiors were designed by Interior Life and looked to echo the real street food stalls in Malaysia. The overhead menu features vinyl cut letters in the brand style that look to add to that genuine street food gritty style. The posters are loud but in-keeping with the brand style.
