Gotetsu.

About this project

Gotetsu had been serving kushiyaki in Ventura for years without a logo. The most visible piece of communication in the room was a sign explaining what they do not serve: no sushi. It was there for a good reason, because people walked in expecting rolls. It also meant the first thing the brand said out loud was a refusal.

What they actually are is a charcoal grill and a sake list. Skewers, Japanese comfort food, a counter you sit at. Nothing on the premises was leading with that.

What I did

Built the mark out of the product. The wordmark is cut through with vertical strokes set at the rhythm of skewers on a grill. It reads as a name at chopstick-sleeve size and as a graphic at storefront size, and it says what the kitchen does without a word of explanation.

Set a system, not a logo. One type hierarchy and three colors, black, bone and red, defined tightly enough that the menu, the packaging and the site could each be built from it without me in the room.

Organized the menu the way the kitchen works. Appetizers, kushiyaki, specialty dishes. Grouped by how a thing is cooked rather than by course, because that is how people order at a counter.

Ran the same system on the phone. Online ordering carries the identity the printed menu carries, so a customer who looks at one and then the other is looking at one restaurant.

What changed

The brand no longer opens with a refusal. What a customer meets first is the food they came for, on the window, on the menu, on the box it leaves in and on the site they order from. The system covers every surface the restaurant actually uses, and none of it needs me to keep running.