Freedom Friday #1. Crawlies
Welcome to the first ever Orb Freedom Friday. “What the hell is Freedom Friday?” I hear you ask. At Orb we love getting creative, and to make sure our creative tools are always sharp we’ve decided that every month we’re going to break free of client briefs, budgets, ROI, deadlines, etc. And have a bit of fun. We just create our own briefs and see what happens.
The brief.
Given the environmental impact of the meat industry, insects have been touted as a potential alternative protein source for the world. They reproduce quickly and in vast numbers, they require fewer resources (e.g. land, feed, irrigation etc.), and their lifespans are generally really short so it can be done more ethically. This got us thinking. What might a fast food style restaurant that served insect based food look and feel like.
Welcome to Crawlies.
Grub’s Up.
Where the staff are sometimes creepy, always crawly.
Where the food tastes better than it sounds.
Insect based food for a protein hit that doesn’t cost the earth.
Just one bite and you’ll be bugging your friends to try it too.
The visual identity.
Having decided to embrace the bugs, black seemed straight to the point and an obvious place to start. The simple ‘no smoke and mirrors’ colour palette seemed to be the right direction to take and would contrast with the majority of cheerful family-fun-fast-food brands out there. Taking direct inspiration from the name (And 90’s Goosebumps aesthetic) the logo creeps and crawls on the screen to help create beautifully grim brand patterns. The combined use of repetitive logo patterns, bug imagery and black and white colour palettes create a visual identity that would have any hungry customer frothing at the mouth – right?
The brand strategy.
The tone of voice was inspired by American diner style culture as well the Fallout game universe. A sort of overly upbeat tone and cheesy lines but executed with self-awareness. It meant we could have a lot of fun with insect based puns when it came to the menu and allowed us to embrace the grossness through tongue-in-cheek humour such as the tagline ”Grub’s Up”.
Good crawl.
By coincidence we finished this just as the government launched their Eat Out to Help Out initiative so we thought we could put it to good use and use our fake brand to help push people towards helping out their local eateries. We advertised Crawlies across social media as if it were real, sending people to the Crawlies “homepage” that then directed people to the Eat Out to Help Out portal. Make sure you’re following us on social media so you don’t miss the next Freedom Friday.
