Responses by Jones Knowles Ritchie
Background: Burger King came to us with a mission to transform its business, achieving the highest standards for food quality, sustainability and restaurant experience in the QSR industry. The original Home of The Whopper® operates more than 18,800 locations in more than 100 countries. With a commitment to digital-first expression and recent improvements to taste and food quality—through the removal of colors, flavors and preservatives from artificial sources from menu items—it was time for its brand identity to reflect the rest of its business.
Reasoning: For Burger King’s first global rebrand in more than two decades, we set out to make the brand feel less synthetic and artificial, and more real, craveable and tasty. Put simply, to make the Burger King brand and the food even more craveable. We were inspired by the brand’s original logo and how it has grown to have an iconic place in culture. The new logo pays homage to the brand’s heritage with a refined design that’s confident, modern, simple and fun.
Challenges: Working with a global brand like Burger King, there are many stakeholders. Almost 100 percent of Burger King restaurants are owned and operated by independent franchisees, many of them family-owned operations that have been in business for decades. Luckily our incredible clients, Fernando Machado, Rapha Abreu and Mary Yetter, championed the work internally from day one, bringing the stakeholders along on the journey and allowing us to focus on creativity.
Favorite details: We got to work with some incredible collaborators on different pieces of the brand. Bryce Barnes, an up-and-coming fashion designer from Washington D.C., helped design the new crew uniforms, Cachete Jack, a Spanish design duo, contributed an entirely new illustration style to help the brand tell playful stories like never before, and Colophon Foundry created our custom serif typeface, Burger King Flame.
Visual influences: Since the rebrand was spurred on by Burger King’s removal of colors, flavors and preservatives from artificial sources, all of our visual decisions took inspiration from real food and Burger King’s trademark flame-grilling method. Colors like Fiery Red, Flaming Orange, BBQ Brown, Mayo Egg White, Crunchy Green and Melty Yellow were introduced, while Blue, a color not normally associated with real food, was removed.
Specific demands: The clients made this project such a joy to work on. They are true champions of creativity and allowed us to be just as bold, playful and irreverent as the Burger King brand.
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