Brand strategy and identity design for Bud's Family Table, a family-owned restaurant in Wyckoff, NJ centered around the theme of home, homestyle cooking, family, and comfort foods – homecooked, made-from-scratch, delicious food.
When approaching the concept and strategy for the restaurant’s brand, I was very interested in bringing the idea of the family dinner table to the restaurant. In the brand strategy and design I wanted to put forth the idea of a warm, inviting environment where people can come and have a real home-cooked meal and feel as though they’re eating at their family dinner table. I wanted to create a space where people can think of this place as an extension of their own home. Hence the tag line, “there’s always room at our family table.”
Since the restaurant is all about the homemade/made-from-scratch, I was very interested in design elements where you can see and feel the hand. Think hand lettering and hand-drawn illustrations, rustic tones, and textures.
A custom set of illustrations was created for the restaurant, and can be seen everywhere from the mural walls to the backs of the menus and the parchments that goes inside the pastry boxes.
Bud’s is not only a restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it is also a grab-and-go bakery where customers can come in and get coffee and baked goods to go – creating abundant opportunities for me to have fun with everything from menus to pastry boxes and sleeves.
This project offered me some new and exciting opportunities to branch out and test my design skills in some other areas of design, including spatial and interior design.
One wall in the restaurant features a painted mural.
Another wall features the restaurant’s tag line in painted and 3D metal type.
The project also consisted of a cookbook designed and produced for Bud's Family Table, curated with recipes collected from Bud herself of some of the most delicious and enticing comfort food. Homemade biscuits? You got it. Chicken pot pie? You bet. Mac and cheese? It wouldn't be a comfort food cookbook without it! Click here to view a PDF of the full book.
*Disclaimer: Not all photography is mine or licensed, some is currently for placeholder until final photography is shot