For Burger King‘s first global rebrand in more than two decades, Jones Knowles Ritchie set out to make the brand feel more real and tasty, and less synthetic and artificial. The new look includes a brand logo, packaging, restaurant merchandise, menu boards, crew uniforms, restaurant signage and decor, social media and digital and marketing assets.
The visual identity features retro colors, like mustard and burnt orange, that highlight the organic shapes and colors of Burger King’s menu items and emphasize fresh ingredients. “We wanted to use design to close the gap between the negative perceptions people have of fast food and the positive reality of our food story,” says Lisa Smith, executive creative director at Jones Knowles Ritchie.
The team replace the synthetic-looking 1999 logo, which had a circular blue swish around a burger icon (and was the lead story in GDUSA September 1999). It was replaced with an updated riff on much earlier versions – a toned down, straight on, flat cartoon burger. The rebrand also features a new custom variable typeface aptly called Flame which, explains Smith, derives from the creative principles of ‘mouth watering’ and “having the irreverence evoke natural organic shapes of food. It looks a little bit squishy and delicious so you can almost taste the typeface.”
