Laid-Back Luxe in Manchester.
Since its launch in 2011, Australasia has grown in popularity to become one of Manchester’s top restaurants. It is a down tempo, relaxed, stylish space serving a Pan Asian menu, that on the weekends transforms into a busy hotspot.
With plans to expand the business, the brand needed a gentle refresh.
We worked closely with Living Ventures, the team behind Australasia, to define the positioning. The key was to evolve the brand, and communicate what was good about what they'd already built, so we articulated the new values that became - Laid-Back Luxe, Stylish sanctuary, Timeless occasions, Masters of transformation and Big Smiles & Open Arms.
From the positioning a new visual identity was developed, which is not only stylish and unique, but stays true to the restaurant's antipodean roots.
The major element of the identity is a series of water color paintings, created to express the the vast and varied landscapes of the Australasian continent from desserts to tropical reefs. Matched to a simple typographic system the identity has been implemented across a suite of menus, website and marketing collateral.
Both Australia and Asia have vast landscapes and surfaces in common. They share the same waters and sense of space and air. All these are the starting point to create textures that represent those natural elements in an abstract way.
We have created a set of watercolour textures that imitate the soil, sand, salt-lakes, water and become something more organic.
An entire series of menus was designed, each using a subtly different watercolour mark that expresses a different landscape. Dessert, Reef, Salt Lake, Mountain.
Simplicity is key to convey elegance and to achieve the laid-back luxury that Australasia is all about. Because of it, we have applied the simplified logo version (with its elegant and timeless typeface) in all our designs.
Light colours, clean typography, gold foil and detailed binding are all present in this concept.
The style is clean and consistent across all the brand collateral - both on site and online. A bank of watercolours in warm and cool hues were created as well as a series of templates for Australasia to utilise across their print and digital marketing.
