An unexpected makeover

I love the new Tender Greens branding (above) from Pentagram designer Paula Scher because it looks nothing like what you’d expect. 

Below is the old logo: Tender, check. Green, check. Organic, check. Give yourself an A. But the result is meek. It blends in. It’s generic, forgettable. 

Scher’s makeover (a pan and plate forming the letter g) is loud, hard, and bold. It’s red, not green; geometric, not organic; and it’s frankly masculine. It feels nothing like food. It’s big, simple, visible, memorable.

What I like, and the reason I’m writing, is the headspace it came from, Scher’s point of view. How did she think this up? You and I may explore such an option but then censor it — too cold, too little nuance, too little texture, too not food. She wasn’t looking at those things.

How could she leave out the warmth, the touch, the things other designers would put in? Here’s the interesting gamble. Because the customer doesn’t need them. Better, if you’re ambitious, is simple, bold, and memorable. Food is so ubiquitous that if you check the usual boxes your restaurant will look like every other. Scher instead homed in on a differentiator (we all have one) — Tender Greens’ chef-centric, pan-to-plate vibe, and stylized it (that g). Result: good food, which the customer can infer (or already knows), attached to a radical interface. The association makes it memorable. Like a word game. And another thing. It’s not just whatever. Not just any image will stick. The idea is logical, the design systematic. It may seem wild, especially at first, but the simple shapes and colors make it familiar enough to get through the door.

Does she know it will work? Of course not. But in branding, memorable is everything and forgettable is nothing. My guess is that you can already identify Tender Greens on sight. Quick, what does Olive Garden look like?

The question for us is, can we learn to think like this too? I’d say yes. Remember that America’s best-known coffee chain branded itself not with coffee beans or a steaming latte, all comforting and predictable, but with a mermaid. Try it.

Read the story at Co.Design and Pentagram, then visit Tender Greens’ own site.

And talk to me.