Branding Report

This Brief I have been given is basically a light branding task. The specific task is to create an interior mural for a Yo! Sushi branch in a chosen style of my choice. The branch will be in a certain country and city and the mural has to reflect that through visual communication. For example if the branch was in London the obvious "top of the mind" ideas to include would be items such as black taxi's, traditional red buses, big Ben etc. The brief also consists of re-branding the YO! Sushi logo with a new typeface of my choice to give it a radical new look.

Also I  must come up with a direct mail pack to promote the new YO! Sushi bar, a new branded menu with my own style and a wine/ beer label.

The most important aspect that I need to keep in mind is that the theme and style I choose for my mural doesn't over power the Yo! Sushi brand. For example if i choose a Banksy theme for my mural I would have to create it in a way that people who saw my mural would know it was for Yo! Sushi and not "Oh look a Banksy restaurant".

I am quite looking forward to getting stuck into this brief and I already have a couple of styles in mind that could work well. I am undecided at the moment as to which style in particular I am going to go for eg. illustration, vector, photo manipulation etc but I am thinking of a sort of Graffiti / urban theme. I think that a sort of theme like that could really work well created in the correct way of course.

For anyone who is not familiar  with Yo! Sushi or has never heard of it for example one of my lecturers, Mike!
It is a fast paced on the go style restaurant that serves the obvious sushi but also a wide range of popular food from the urban Tokyo scene such as traditional soups, noodle dishes, salads, Chicken Katsu Curry, Salmon Teriyaki and lots more.

Yo! Sushi was founded in 1997 after improving on a conveyor belt food serving system used by a Japanese ‘kaiten’ sushi bar in Japan. The Yo! Sushi brand decided to not only improve the idea but also wanted to take it up a level and open sushi bars in other countries around the world to show how healthy and delicious sushi was in countries that did not really sell it.

Yo! Sushi opened their first UK based branch in London and since then the company has spread all over the world internationally. One of their newest branches to open is in Meadowhall in Sheffield. In my honest opinion I am not the biggest fan of the food that Yo! Sushi specialize in however I like the whole idea of the conveyor belt food serving system as I have never seen that anywhere else before its really quite an innovative idea. I also like the look and feel of the company the colors and styles used are very vibrant and modern this gives the company a really urban and interesting look in my opinion. I don't really want to go into anymore detail on the company as it is an international company and I am aware that most people know whats it all about so I don't want to create a long and boring report on it as it is not needed to be honest.
However if you want to know more of the ins and outs of the Yo! Sushi name and the story behind it here is the link to their website.

http://www.yosushi.com/

After looking around on the internet I came across a link that led me to a site Called YO! Company. What I found next was quite interesting. It turns out that YO! Sushi is just a link and a rather large chain of sister companies owned by a company called YO! Company or ( YO! Co). Thats where the YO! in YO! Sushi has come from. Now I know this the YO! Sushi name makes more sense to me as I originally thought it was just a quirky name given to a sushi bar but now I know that YO! is the mother company and the Sushi is just a addition to the YO! Company which I did not know before.

Also the YO! Co has quite a long list of other companies and businesses under the YO! umbrella including :

• YO!Tel (Hotel)
• YO!Japan (Clothing line)
• RadiYO! (Radio Station)
• YO! How? + Simon Woodroffe ( website with all the information on Simon Woodroffe, Founder of YO! Sushi)
• YO! Zone (Spa / Social place, currently in development)
• YO!Home (Currently in development, a concept of your own branded house designed by YO! HOME company)
• YO! Everything (Basically a site open to your own personal opinions and suggestions on what the YO! company should create next)

I do not want to go into every little detail of the YO! Co as it is the YO! Sushi aspect of the company that I will be focusing on so if you are wanting to read into YO! Co a little more I have included the website link below:

http://www.yocompany.biz/index.html