Project Snippet - Character Pieces for The Cerulean

Sometimes it’s the little things that you remember most, or it’s the tiny takeaways you keep as a souvenir of your experience, allowing you to look back fondly on a certain time in your life. When designing character pieces, the thought is to always create something that speaks to that brand and reminds the patron of their fond interaction with it, but to also be subtley branded in a way where the patron isn’t transformed into a walking billboard. I am vehemently against logo-slapping for this reason; no one wants to be used as free advertising, and unless they really love a brand, they won’t wear a logo loud and proud across their chest.

Character pieces have to also make sense for the brand. Yes, in the world of free swag and branded merch, t-shirts and pins are the norm. But just because they are the norm doesn’t mean they’re right for each and every brand. Take the character pieces below for The Cerulean, for example. The Cerulean (while still not open at the time of writing) is a laidback, casual seafood restaurant based out of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Bay St. Louis is a touristy waterfront town, but The Cerulean, while wanting to also appeal to tourists, is meant to be a respite for the bay-loving locals.

When coming up with ideas for character pieces, I had to put myself in the shoes of a local; thinking about what kind of items they would actually want to take home and use, and how branded these items should be. Being the more practical sort, I imagined the patron would want items they could actually use; fishing hats and shirts to protect their skin while out on the bay, and koozies to keep their beverage of choice frosty while out in the hot sun.

Project Snippet - Chasin' Tails

Back in the day there were some real interesting clients that came through the doors at Vigor. One such client was Happy Endings Hospitality (HEH for short… you may giggle now). They own a few different restaurants, each of them with a suggestive name. Chasin’ Tails is one such restaurant, their Cajun concept, and the OG concept paved the way for the rest of HEH’s brands.

So you may be asking yourself, looking at the logo and supporting marks above… why poker chips? Why have you abstracted a crawfish into a spade? Well, dear reader, it’s because without poker chips Happy Endings Hospitality wouldn’t exist. The founder likes to take risks and have fun, as is obvious by the risque names of the restaurants they own, and initially started HEH with money he had one from time spent in Vegas. So, to pay homage to that story and set Chasin’ Tails apart from other seafood restaurants, I focused on a clean-lined look that would layer easily with gratuitous photos of low-country boils and stand-out among the nautical ship-lap-covered competition.

This little identity system didn’t end up being the final, but I felt there was merit in it and couldn’t let it gather dust on my harddrive.

Project Snippet - eegee's Flavor of the Month LTOs

Two eegee’s case studies, an eegee’s project snippet… another eegee’s project snippet? Jeez, how much work did I do for eegee’s? Apparently, a lot. I’ve still got another project snippet after this one to showcase even more work.

Along the lines of the limited time offer campaigns, there was another type of campaign we handled on the regular; the flavor of the month campaign. If you watched those video ads, you’ll see at the end of each video a shout out for that month’s flavor of the month. See, eegee’s is well known for their slushie-like drinks, and these drinks have an insane cult-like following, so much so that at the end of each month their social channels get bombarded from questions from users about what the new special month-long flavor is going to be. It’s usually the same from year-to-year, with a few wild cards thrown in to keep customers on their toes.

When Vigor took over as agency of record for eegee’s, we approached how the flavor of the month was handled. Instead of the same look and feel from month to month with just the color of the slush in the cup swapped out, we developed full scale conceptual campaigns relating each flavor to an ‘eegee’s moment’. To get a full view of what Vigor did, check out the case study and the final flavor of the month creative directions.

When we pitched the concept from month to month, we’d always show a couple of conceptual directions. I’d like to take a moment to highlight some of my creative art directions that didn’t make it out into the real world, but are marvels of Photoshop magic that I’m still quite proud of.

Project Snippet - eegee's Teekee Marketing Effort

eegee’s always positioned itself as a family-focused brand, but there was always a group of people that loved to spike their eegee slushies. So much so that there was a bit of a local habit in Tucson, AZ to buy the party-sized version of the eegee and bring it to get-togethers to spike. Local bars and dives would even create their own cocktails inspired by (or even using) eegee’s flavors, so when the pandemic kicked off in early 2020 and closed dining rooms, acknowledging this adult-only enjoyment of their namesake treat as a way for folks to take the brand home during lockdown seemed like a natural fit. With local establishments facing the brunt of the shutdown, eegee’s also chose to uplift their neighbors and partner with them to create a series of officially-recognized eegee’s Teekees, sharing recipes via social and video weekly featuring the eegee’s flavor of the month. The recipes created over the course of a year were collected to create a recipe book that was available for purchase in December.

Individual posts in-feed on social announced the drink of the week in an appetizing way, and gave the bar partner a prominent shoutout to eegee’s mass following.

Each cocktail recipe was distributed via Instagram stories in an easy-to-screenshot format.

On our suggestion, the team at eegee’s recorded the creation of each teekee onsite at the partner location. These videos were used on social for weeks that a static image post was not used, and lives permanently on eegee’s YouTube channel. Click through the video and watch on YouTube to see the full playlist of all of eegee’s Teekees.

A year’s worth of Teekees culminated in the creation of a recipe book, a few select spreads above. Inspired by vintage tiki cocktail recipes books, I designed this book to have all that same outrageous fun expressed in the eegee’s way.

Project Snippet - Little Fish Sushi Houses

Another little logo designed during my time at Vigor for Scratch Kitchen’s family of brands. This one got to see its day in the sun, and I’m so glad it did. For this mark, I edited existing typography to emphasize each letters sharpest edges, like the blade of a well-maintained Japanese knife. For the letters that featured flamboyant finials (say that five times fast) I added fins, and turned the F into a fish symbol for the brand.