Nandos Logo & Branding | A lesson in great brand identity design

Do you eat at Nandos?

Do you remember the logo?

As far as logos go it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing and neither does it play to our state of hunger but it is authentic, welcoming and original.

The Nandos colour pallete:

The primary brand colours of black and red create a stark contrast and a contemporary twist avert to modern day restaurants whilst the green leaves add a dash of wholesome warmth associated with nature.

The Nandos Type & Illustration style:

Oozing authenticity and rustic flair, Nandos use an italicised serif font for their name mark, styled with a jagged edge to show a personal and traditional touch of a hand script or brush font.

The strapline is simple and to the point, using a lowercase sans-serif brush font, to reclaim a modern look.

The whole design is stroked with a rough-edged illustrative style, delivering a message of traditional authenticity, a reference to fire and a playful look, appealing to families and children.

Technically, it‘s fits amazingly into the Fibonacci scale, with the heart shape repeated intentionally throughout the cockerel features to create a holistic design.

The Nandos Mark and Message

The black cockerel originates from a Portuguese myth and communication wise its says it all as a brand identity….

• Portuguese Inspired
• Love Chicken

The Nandos Restaurant

Nandos originated over 20 years ago as a single diner in South Africa called “ChickenLand” and was bought out by Robert Brozin and Fernando Duarte. 

The business changed, grew and is a great example of restaurant branding and a restaurant using a system of design to create a unique identity.

The logo, like for many restaurants works like a skylight, signifying from a distance that there’s a Nandos restaurant close by, but if there was no logo and you walked inside Nandos, you’d still recognise it as a Nandos restaurant.

Little by little, everything inside the restaurant from the service style and décor to the bathrooms and menu is a part of the overall grand brand identity of the restaurant, paying homage to its South-African/Portuguese roots.

With secondary colours varying in warm and dusty hues, the overall identifiable experience goes beyond the logo design and it’s a pretty typical procedure for all chained restaurants, however, it’s noteworthy that most chained restaurants start out as small, single outlets and in order to grow, they create a system of design to enhance their brand identity.

As restaurant chains get even bigger they tend to streamline their identity, making it easier for their brand identity to be reproduced and recognised.

You may not be a restauranteur in which case menu design, mood or even uniforms may pay no relevance in your business branding but as a self-employed business owner, you can benefit from expanding your brand identity to create a coherant and consistent them that runs through your business assets.

It’s quite a simple methodology of building a brand identity.

1. Create a system of design that can be used to identify your business.
2. Apply that system of design to your business assets.
3. Use those business assets.

What assets can you expand with your brand design?

Check out the full Nandos Re-Brand >>