HON KEE RESTAURANT
Invited by Hong Hong-based graphics design studio Vision Plus, we joined and led the rebranding process for this 65-year-old restaurant in the eastbound Kowloon peninsula. Hon Kee Restaurant, formally named “Hon Kee Seafood Restaurant” in English, is one of the oldest restaurants in the Lei Yuen Mum Village that mainly provide cooking service to customers ordering live seafood from seafood stalls at the same alley.
Since the 1960s, Lei-Yuen-Mum Village being famous for buying live seafood and seafood restaurants among locals and tourists. The competition between restaurants got massive and had 22 individuals in mid-2020. Hon Kee’s owner foresaw the need for a change due to the competition in the alleys and the overall economic challenges. Our rebranding service included a market study, brand strategy development, trademark design, menu refreshment, and other operational suggestions.
Associate with the owner’s plan in serving more food variety on the shifting market, we removed the word “Seafood” from the English name and the words “Seafood Restaurant” in Chinese. The shortened name became easier for new customers to remember.
To show the restaurant’s heritage background, we decided to use calligraphy on the Chinese name when creating the new trademark and signs. We test wrote many styles to seek the perfect calligraphy shapes that can express the defined brand essence. The chosen calligraphy characters were paired with a sans serif typeface for the English name to make the trademark a perfect balance between modern and vintage.
