Country Chef Rebrand

Modernizing a classic family brand.

Country Chef creates delicious comfort food, available to customers in markets across the country. The existing brand and collateral were dated and weren’t connecting with their desired demographic, making it harder to attract new customers. The brand needed to feel gourmet and nostalgic, small batch, and steeped in tradition without feeling outdated. It needed to balance classic and timeless with modernity.

I was brought on board to tackle the rebrand. Over the course of 8 weeks, I created a fresh new logo with basic brand guidelines that include color palette, typography and examples of potential collateral.

North Star

Before diving into visual exploration, we aligned on the goals for the brand. Some words and phrases that surfaced during our discussions were “gourmet nostalgia”, “a twist on comfort food”, and “a blend of old school and new school”. As a third generation family owned business, they wanted to hold onto a ‘mom and pop’ small batch aesthetic. They were drawn towards badges, such as USDA stamps, and were interested in incorporating a badge into the identity.

Visual exploration

I explored several initial directions. One direction was inspired by farm signage and sign-painting from farmer’s markets, another featured more modern friendly typography, and a third played off of family crests. We aligned on a warm, rich palette of earth tones.

EARLY EXPLORATION

The logo

The logo direction we landed on featured a crest, inspired by family crests, with rolling hills and a rising sun. The shield is paired with a distinctive serif. A full suite of logo lockups were created to tackle the many possible uses across digital, print, and packaging — a primary, secondary, and tertiary lockup, as well as a badge and icon.