What better to build that connection than via good old design? But what design are we talking about? Well, everything right from the menus, your interior design, signboard, website, social media, and advertisements matter. 

But, there is one important design element that matters more than most, and that is your logo. A restaurant logo plays a vital role in its success and sustained growth. With the right branding design and visual identity, you can communicate your values to your audience. 

How great would it be if customers know exactly what they are in for when they get into your restaurant? What if you could find your ideal target audience that can appreciate the menu and ambiance you have built?

But is that even possible? With just a logo? 

Your restaurant’s logo design can help you make a great first impression and start things off for you on the right foot. 

So how do you get there? What do you need? 

In this blog by Kimp, we answer all these questions and give you the best 6 tips to create your own delicious restaurant logo design. 

Let’s get started.

The Significance of Restaurant Logos 

We know that we’ve made some big claims about restaurant logos Can they actually do all that? How significant can a restaurant logo design really be? 

Well, consider this scenario for a minute. 

There are a billion restaurants worldwide and at least a million in any given city. So how do you stand out in the market? How do you tell your customers why they need to be your patrons?

You cannot just talk to all your potential customers, but you can surely communicate. 

Your logo design is a gateway to communicating your brand to customers. In most cases, only if the logo catches their eye will they even explore ahead.  

What else can a good restaurant logo design achieve?

Brand awareness and recall  

You know better than any of us that the competition in the restaurant industry is intense. Everyone loves the food business, but let’s face it, it is brutal. And the only solution to ensure you survive is to get customers through the door. But how do you ensure your customers know of your existence and remember you, too?

Well, people are more likely to forget names than faces. So put a face to your business with your logo design. Your restaurant’s logo design can make it easy for them to spot you on a crowded street, cramped social media feed, and so on. 

Making marketing easier 

Coming up with marketing strategies that work is no easy feat. You may have the best content plans in your mind, but the success of it all depends on the audience. But with good branding design in place, half the battle is done. 

Whenever an advertisement or a social media profile crops up on their feed, customers check your branding before proceeding. And if you do not have a meaningful and attractive logo design, you may end up losing customers. 

So, to make your marketing campaigns a success, start with a good logo design.

Forming connections with the audience 

The restaurant business runs on two things: Good Food and Strong Emotions. Both of them are equally important. Any restaurant can serve fish and chips, but only some brands can demand a premium without losing customers. 

Customers want to pay a premium for an experience and to dine somewhere special. If you have an imagery to denote that you hand pick your ingredients, will they not pick you over other restaurants?

That’s the power of a good restaurant logo design.

Restaurant Logos: Components you need to know 

We know what a restaurant logo can do for your business. The next step is to understand how to make your logo design do that. But before that, let’s take a look at the components of a logo design. The tips will be a lot more effective after this. 

Let’s jump right in. 

1. Text 

Unlike other industries, wordmark logos (brand names as logos) are very common in the restaurant industry. Chances are you have an extremely meaningful and elaborate brand name, followed by a fantastic slogan. Naturally, you want the logo design to center on this. 

So the text is a vital component of all restaurant logos. You must carefully consider the length, styling, alignment, and placement of that text in your logo designs.

2. Color 

Can you have pasta without cheese? Blasphemy, right? Unimaginable? Well, that is the connection between color and logo designs. FYI – in this context, black is a color too. People notice colors right off the bat and form many emotional connections/judgments based on them. 

The color you pick for your restaurant logo design will define your brand for a long time. This color will also become an intrinsic part of your overall branding and marketing style guides. So pick wisely.

In this restaurant logo, you can see how the colors combine to reinforce the brand’s focus on health, fresh ingredients and wellness. If they had used any other color combination, people may pass them off, but the purple and green in combination with the imagery scream healthy habits, even to someone who doesn’t read the name.

3. Font 

Since most restaurant logos are word marks, the font plays an important role here too. This is especially true if you are opting for a minimalistic logo design with no other graphic design element. Then you have just the font to convey your brand’s aesthetic and values. 

Font psychology is real too, and customers judge a brand to be friendly or standoffish based on the fonts you choose. So it is not a decision to take without considering all factors.

4. Images 

While restaurants using just images in their logo design are rare, many do use some images and graphic design elements in their designs. These can be images of their dishes, illustrations, brand mascots, doodles, shapes, and so much more.

These images add one more element that connects the brand and the customer. Brand mascots are great, especially for this. Who can forget Ronald McDonald or the KFC Colonel for example? 

Pick an image that you feel truly represents your brand. If there isn’t one readily available, Kimp Graphics can craft something special for you.

Many factors influence the effectiveness of these design elements and, in our next section, we will cover them. 

So why wait? Let’s dig in. 

6 Tips for Restaurant logos + Examples

As our designers often tell our clients, the biggest difference between design and art is that design has a specific CTA in mind. Design must lead your customers to a specific action that they take to become closer to your brand. 

So how do you design your restaurant’s logo design as a purposeful branding element? 

Well, we hope that these tips from the best minds at Kimp can help you. Let’s check them out.

1. Understand your branding identity 

To create a visual identity that resonates with your brand, you have to start by defining your brand’s values. Ask yourself: 

What is your mission?

What values do you want to project? 

Why should customers come to you? What is so unique about your restaurant? 

These questions must form the basis of your branding identity. 

For example, if you are an Italian restaurant that wants to bring the authentic taste of Italy to the streets of Malaysia, your logo design must project that. 

Every design element you pick right from the color, the font, and the name’s styling must have a relation to that mission and value of yours. 

Check out this logo of the popular dining in the Dark restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. Just from the logo, you know what the brand stands for and what a customer can expect from this establishment.

Kimp Tip: Sometimes, it can be hard to visualize your branding values, and the logo design may not come out effectively as a result. We recommend creating a detailed design brief with mood boards so that your designers can take a stab at translating your branding identity into your logo design.

Check out our guide on writing a design brief that gets results. Still not sure about how to tackle this process? The Kimp Graphics team starts from a detailed questionnaire and iterates until you are happy. Book a call with the team to learn more.

2. Celebrate the theme 

Often, restaurants have a theme going beyond the cuisine they are serving. And it is these unique themes that attract customers to walk into your restaurant. People love establishments that work on elevating their dining experience. A theme can just be the ambiance you have, the decor, or a particular common thread between your dishes. 

But, there is a possibility of a Catch-22 situation here. You need customers to experience the theme and spread the word out there. But it is the theme that has to lure the customers in. Even if you advertise, you may still miss out on some customers. 

And that is why we recommend you celebrate your USP or theme via the logo design itself. Tease it at least so that the intrigue builds, making your restaurant irresistible to people. 

Check out the logo of this popular Canadian restaurant: Langdon Hall. Besides being one of the top restaurants in Canada, the establishment boasts of a luxurious experience in posh settings too. The logo features a leaping deer to signify the greenery and nature customers can experience there.

3. Understand your target audience 

At the beginning of this section, we mentioned how design has a purpose. It needs to motivate your customers to connect with your brand. To achieve this, you must design with your target audience in mind. 

Everyone has preferences in color, font, images, and styling based on the society, culture, and generation they grew up in. By designing with these preferences in mind, you create a design that instantly resonates with your audience. 

For example, the Australian and New Zealand-based bakery chain, Muffin Break, has a unique logo. Though it is a restaurant business, they have picked a ribbon with brown and white color combination as the dominant element of their restaurant logo design. 

The brown has a nice tie-in to coffee and baked goods. And the ribbon meanwhile symbolizes a royal vibe and is a unique design element bound to give people the impression that they’ll receive excellent service and high-quality goods from the brand. 

4. Express your brand personality 

Since the restaurant industry runs on emotions, you need something strong for customers to connect to. If you have a brand personality that is like all the other restaurants, it will not help your cause. 

Not every restaurant business can have one theme, and it is this expression of brand personality that makes you stand out. 

There is another advantage of using your logo design to express your unique brand personality. You attract the right crowd. When the customers understand your vision and share the same values, the experience is much more meaningful for both of you. 

But is it possible via just a restaurant logo design? Yes, and we mean it. Consider this logo of a popular UK restaurant, Casamia. Just looking at the logo in the Graffiti style, you understand it is a restaurant with a rebellious personality. And their website matches this description too. 

Now, this is not a personality that everyone likes, and this can be a problem if a customer expecting something else walks in. That is why Casamia ensures they send the right impression out with their logo design. As one should.

Do you want to know more about brand personalities and corresponding designs? Check out our guide here or connect with the Kimp Graphics team to start designing! 

5. Pay attention to balance in design 

We focused on the indirect elements that make a restaurant logo effective. Now it is time to understand what design concepts work the best. 

Good restaurant logos are easy to read, recall, and balanced in design. You may wonder what do we mean by balance in design?

Balance in design delivers a harmonious result and makes the overall design easy to perceive. For example, irrespective of the number of elements in the design, there must be a smooth visual flow so that customers can concentrate on one element at a time. 

Leverage concepts like negative space and visual hierarchy so that you end up with an attractive logo design.

Consider the logo design of Pak Pao. Even though the logo has two major design elements competing for attention – name, and image, we only see one balanced output. This is because the designer has kept it subtle and used similar styling on both elements.

6. Check for compatibility across mediums 

Last but not the least, let’s consider the technical aspects of a good restaurant logo design. When you design a logo, you must think about the long-term aspects too. Rebranding is a costly affair, and long-term planning can prove very useful for your business. 

So what do you need to check for?

• First off, the restaurant business is extremely print-dependent. You print flyers, posters, menus, packaging inserts, tissues, uniforms, and so much more. So, the first check is to see if the logo works well in print. Some colors, fonts, and images don’t, and it is better to address these before you go live. 
• The reverse is true too. As a budding restaurant brand, you must check if the logo looks good across digital mediums too. Create mockups for how the logo design will look on social media, third-party hosting platforms, your website, etc. 
• Always proof the logo in the color mode and B/W mode as well. It is good to have a logo design handy with a transparent background too. It comes in handy if you update the color of your menus, uniforms, or labels.

Create delicious restaurant logos with Kimp 

Running a restaurant has to be one of the hardest jobs out there. And when the market is so competitive, launching one is no walk in the park either. 

That’s why you need a great set of branding and marketing to promote your restaurant with. With Kimp Graphics’ unlimited design subscription, you can get all your branding designs you need ready at a flat monthly fee, from a team of experts.. 

So why wait? Get started today.