Karnival
With an estimated value of £1.6 billion, the UK’s street food scene is booming. A huge demand for wider variety, better affordability and ultimate convenience means street food markets, pop-ups and deliveries are more popular than ever.
Karnival specialise in capturing all the magic of street food markets and delivering it directly to their clients. They work with a roster of top London traders to create bespoke street food experiences that cater for everything from office lunches and corporate events to private parties and public pop-ups.
Challenge
A crowded market (literally)
Between traders, restaurants, markets and delivery services – London’s street food scene is awash with different brands and businesses all vying for customers’ attention.
Whilst their business offer was clear, Karnival needed help communicating exactly what it is that makes them unique. They needed a brand with a more defined point of view that would help lift them above the sector noise and really target their audiences. Something that would resonate with the traders they work with whilst also appealing to the corporate clients they cater to.
Insight
It's about more than just food
The beauty of street food is multifaceted. And whilst traditional delivery services deliver on taste and convenience, they can’t provide the sights, sounds and smells of a buzzing market. Similarly, markets offer a great atmosphere and immersive experience, but who really wants to be queuing 20 minutes for their lunch?
What Karnival do so perfectly is take the best bits from each of these offers and combine them into one. They provide the convenience of delivery with the theatre and atmosphere of the market. It was this ability to literally deliver more than any of their competitors that led us to our brand idea.
Idea
Hungry for more
With little Oliver Twist ringing in our ears, we developed our brand idea. Built on the notion of indulgence, ‘Hungry for more’ captures the universal desire for fresher food, bolder flavours and heightened experiences. More varied. More authentic. More immersive. More convenient.
For Karnival this acts as a driver to constantly strive for better; optimising offers, growing their client base and working with new traders to consistently deliver the best street food the capital has to offer. For vendors it acts as an invitation to grow and elevate their business by winning more hearts and bellies through greater exposure. And most importantly, for clients it acts as a challenge to stop settling for greasy burger vans, tepid pasties and dreary meal deals.
Mixing things up
To help bring our idea to life we leant into the rich visual world of street food – layering up elements inspired by packaging, stickers, menus and receipts to create a vibrant visual tapestry that perfectly represents the melting pot that is the London street food scene.
Hand-drawn stickers and turned-up corners overlay rugged wrappers and vivid photography. The colour palette balances the muted tones of earthy ingredients and packaging with the vibrancy of fresh fruit and veg. And the the bold, robust typeface acts as a constant thread tying the flexible system together.
The cherry on top
To help anchor an identity system that is varied and vibrant by design, we worked with lettering artist Oli Frape to develop a signature for Karnival. Reflecting the scrawled handwriting of traders quickly jotting down orders or scribbling names, the signature is an understated symbol of authenticity and personalisation that resonates with traders and clients alike.
Eat with your ears
With a bold identity and evocative brand idea, it’s important that Karnival’s tone of voice lives up to the promise of ‘Hungry for more’. From the stickers to the headlines, we managed to capture the essence of this through a clear challenger personality and plenty of punchy messaging. We even managed to weave in a few references to the celebratory name.
Thisaway have been an unbelievable partner in turning our old, tired brand into an amazing one fit for the future. From the beginning of the project, you could tell that they really cared about not only the outcome, but also the creative journey to get there. Communication was always top notch and our constructive feedback always felt like it was being understood and actioned. We couldn’t be happier with the end result.