Leo's Table, Food Characters

After years of working in other kitchens and a stint as a personal chef, Jen Howard found herself ready to fulfill her childhood dream of owning her own small cafe–opening Leo’s table in 2019. Not long after opening however, Jen was forced to close the indoor dining area due to the rapidly changing landscape that COVID-19 created. Thanks to her years of offering a home delivery meal service, Jen was able to quickly pivot to offering curbside and indoor pickup for orders from Leo's. To keep customers and staff safe, Jen needed signage to clearly convey CDC guidelines for appropriate behavior for those who entered the cafe. As Jen’s ongoing branding and marketing partner, we leveraged the personal, vintage, farm table feeling of the brand to create food characters who illustrated the safety messaging on outdoor signs in an approachable, comfortable manner easing the collective stress everyone was feeling. As time went on, these food characters evolved in such a way that they could be used in a variety of materials, not only for COVID-19-related items. The opportunity for a wide range of food characters presented itself when Jen re-opened the dining area and needed table cards. Leveraging the style of the previously created characters, we built a range of "food friends", each with their own personality, to create a distinctive look for each table card and offer the customer their own unique food friend to entertain them as they waited for their meal. Since initially being used on the table cards, the "food friends" have appeared on the menu, ads, coupons, and other branded materials.