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NEKO REBRAND
A cozy brand refresh for Seattle’s
cutest catty cafe.
TIMELINE3 months / Winter 2023
ROLEDesigner
TEAMResearch - Group
Branding- Solo
SKILLS
Branding & Identity
Jump to Final
OVERVIEW
NEKO is a beloved cat cafe located in the heart of Capitol Hill, Seattle, loved all who visit! Though their branding needs a refresh as it does not seem to match it’s current playful and cheeky presence they have developed over their years in business.
RESEARCH
The research part of this project was done in a group to ensure a thorough and neutral impression of the cafe.
Neko Cat Cafe was founded by Caitlin Unsell and her partner Cory. They became enamored with the unique cat cafe culture while living abroad for three years in Japan and decided to open up a cat cafe here in Seattle!
Visiting the store and learning about what the audience feels about NEKO, it was clear that the cafe was adored for its cute cats, unique cafe experience as well as their friendly staff. Looking their merch, they had come to establish a bold and silly sense of humor that people resonated with. Although their current brand, that takes much inspiration from Japanese cafe design, does not quite reflect that.
AUDIENCE
Primarily, their audience seemed to be anyone who loves cats! Whether it be people who are looking to adopt a cat, are unable to keep a cat at home or just want to spend an hour surrounded by a dozen cats.
Neko’s secondary audience are local families looking for a unique experience, something fun to do indoors when the weather is gloomy and grey.
TAKEAWAYS
There seems to be a dissonance between their initial branding, Japanese minimal with a touch of cute, and how their brand ended up manifesting tonally, humorous and friendly. Moving forward, I wanted to marry these 2 brand concepts in a way that kept true to the origin of cat cafes and the current tone of the brand to make something unique to NEKO.
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
TONAL DEVELOPMENT
First, we collected a variety of images that resonated with the “cat cafe’ concept to create an image bank. From there, we went through the bank, voting on what did or did not resonated best with what we learned from our research on NEKO. We placed each of the images on a scale of “what we are” to “what we are not” to understand what works best for the brand.
Looking at each of the images, we also assigned words that described the tone of the brand. We segmented them into key words and sub words that worked well to establish the brand’s feel, using it to construct a mission statement!
NEKO is cute, friendly and unique. NEKO is a cozy cafe that offers community and hard to adopt kitties a chance to find a forever home.
From here, we split off individually to approach the projects with our personal design solution.
CONCEPT BOARDS
For each of the key words, cute, friendly and unique, I constructed moodboards using images from the image. I supplemented them with photos that added more visual definition for the branding solution, focusing more on type, patterns, deliverables and illustrations.
I put together 1 final mood board that defined the visual direction I had in mind for the branding refresh, this gave me a good direction for the next step, executing the branding and deliverables.
LOGO
With the visual direction coming together, I worked on several design sprints to determine the new logo.
For NEKO’s new logo, I went with a bold yet friendly look. Since brand grew to develop a cute-cheeky vibe, I chose a pictorial logo with a playful visual metaphor. I paired it with a blocky typeface “Block W1G” to emphasize the boldness. Having “Poppins” as the body typeface and a hand-drawn wobbly look, softens everything to maintain a friendly vibe.
With that, I started developing the other assets to bring the brand to life and provide clear direction on NEKO’s new quirky yet bold visuals!
FINAL DELIVERABLES