It’s always fun to work with an existing brand that is well-known and loved, and I recently had the pleasure of helping California Pizza Kitchen as additional support for their design team during a period of an overload of creative projects. CPK, as the brand is fondly referred to for short, is known for its laid back, easygoing atmosphere and delicious pizzas, and the brand design is a great reflection of this.
During the month of October, the chain was promoting their “National Pizza Month” campaign, for which my team designed a logo in addition to menu components, flyers, web banners, and table tents. With October being the season of Halloween and Jack-o-Lanterns, I also assisted in promoting CPK’s seasonal favorite: their pumpkin cheesecake. This festive dessert is a major crowd-pleaser, and it was a fun project designing content to help publicize this knockout dish!
In addition to these seasonal projects, my team also helped CPK create banners to hide the construction of their new Manhattan Beach location, to be completed in 2020. Just because something is under construction doesn’t mean it has to look bad! Our design brought some appeal to what otherwise might be an eyesore, while helping to promote the brand to boot.
I loved this project, in part because it was an exciting challenge to have to work within the parameters of an established brand’s voice and style to create new, fresh content. As fun as it can be to reinvent the wheel, we pride ourselves on our ability to keep the look of the content consistent with the image the brand has already created. The most important thing is that the work look seamless—no one should be able to differentiate what was done in-house and what was outsourced. I think we succeeded to this end; CPK was satisfied with our work, and we enjoyed creating it!
