Case Study | Williamsburg

Re-Branding Tamworth's Favourite Burgers

Dedicated to making their corner of the world a more interesting place. Williamsburg’s vision is to raise the bar for hospitality within the Tamworth region by creating an extraordinary dining experience like none other. Founded upon years of experience in the industry ‘The Burg’ is more than a burger bar. It’s a family and a dream built from nothing.

With the launch of a new menu approaching, Williamsburg found their current branding had become too repetitive, safe and was beginning to lack in the qualities that made them stand out originally.
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Williamsburgs nenu

Scope of Work

Strategy
Messaging
Branding
Identity Design
Print Design
Digital Marketing Collateral
Web Design and Development
Photography and Video Production

relevant wasn’t good enough

For the past 4 years Williamsburg had been going strong as one of the more unique restaurants in Tamworth. Today the elements that made them special had started to become predictable, safe and for lack of a better word, normal. Luckily The Burg was still relevant but for a business with big ideas like Williamsburg relevant simply wasn’t going to cut it.
Williamsburgs classic logo on a yellow background with "The Burger Bar" Written underneath
EXISTING IDENTITY
The identity lacked refinement and a defined system. It didn’t communicate Williamsburg’s unique qualities or voice and had become easy to replicate over the years.
Williamsburgs old website
Existing Website
The website didn’t establish  the atmosphere or quality of Williamsburg and lacked a content management system making updating the website and adapting marketing efforts slow and difficult.
A photo of a family eating burgers together and a photo of williamsburg inside empty
EXISTING PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography tone was too static, stark, staged and didn’t capture that atmosphere or vibe of Williamsburg.
EXISTING STRATEGY
Some strategy work had been done and no messaging or voice strategy was in place. Marketing creative required Williamsburg's director to be directly involved to keep consistency.
“I needed a professional that could challenge my creative thinking to bring Williamsburg to the next level. My thought process about the brand was becoming too safe and repetitive. I needed to think in new ways, be inspired in new ways, and to bring out the vision I have for The Burg leading into the next few years. ”
- Luke Fielding, Director, Williamsburg
A man wearing a williamsburg branded bomber jacket
Williamsburg first noticed this problem was through their website. Along side requiring an agency to make any changes, slowing their marketing down they also felt they had outgrown the visual style of the site. Williamsburg’s director Luke Fielding researched his options to try and make the change he needed. Prior to reaching out, he wasn’t sure if Pallett Design was a good fit due to a lack of hospitality specific work.

After discussing the project Williamsburg made the decision to bring Pallett Design on board to help redesign the website. The project started with a discovery session between Jack Pallett and Luke Fielding to gain clarity on what made Williamsburg unique and how best to serve their customers.

In the session we found that Williamsburg's website needed more than a fresh coat of paint.

Williamsburg's Vision of Success

Williamsburg’s overall vision is an extraordinary dining experience. Bringing elements of franchises and restaurants only found in larger cities together with the friendly and relatable aspects of a local small town restaurant without compromising on either. They aimed for the burg to be ahead of the curve when it came to design, food and the overall experience. Williamsburg had to be the coolest and most unique restaurant in the Tamworth region without fail.
“A brand lives in the minds of the people who connect with it. Standing out as unique and valuable is entirely dependent on the collective experience people have with the business and others around it.”
A brand lives in the minds of the people who connect with it. Standing out as unique and valuable is entirely dependent on the collective experience people have with the business and others around it. Understanding the competitive landscape along with the customers is vital to building a successful brand.
Williamsburg from the outside
sheets of paper with a customer profile on them
Williamsburg Customer Persona

Understanding the Customers

Williamsburg customer base is primarily young people under the age of 35 and Tamworth families. It was important that we dove into the psychology of these groups and understood their needs and motivations in life. Doing this makes a massive difference when designing, helping each decision made in creating Williamsburg’s online and offline experiencesbenefit the customers as much as possible.
  • Primarily Young People under the age of 35 and Tamworth Families
  • Looking for something exciting to break up their day to day life that makes them feel as if they're not in Tamworth
  • Needing somewhere to relax, be themselves, have a laugh and not forced to be formal
The Burg’s customers had some similar needs. The longing for an experience that broke up their usual day to day life that made their lives more exciting alongside an environment that allowed them to be themselves and relax. With that in mind every branding decision needed to not only showcase the extraordinary and exciting nature of the restaurant but be relatable to the customers giving them permission to be themselves.

Project goals

  1. Reestablish Williamsburg’s positioning with the new menu launch
  2. Develop Williamsburg’s brand strategy and voice so their message is consistent no matter who is behind it
  3. Develop a defined identity system that is reflective of the Williamsburg experience and allows their customers to relate more with them
  4. Create a website that is more user friendly, showcases the atmosphere of Williamsburg and is possible to edit in house.
  5. Design new printed and digital assets that have a positive impact on Williamsburg’s brand and improve customer’s overall experience.
A collection of williamsburg's brand attributes in yellow circles
Williamsburg Brand Attributes

Talking the talk

The first step was to work on the brand’s messaging and voice strategy. In the past some of Williamsburg’s communication was inconsistent and there was a clear gap between the voice envisioned by the owners and the one projected by their previous creative agency.

With some research it was clear that communication that wasn’t sales oriented resonated the best with Williamsburg’s audience.
Williamsburg’s voice is relatable above all. They speak on the same level as their customer base, down to earth, relaxed and even sometimes a bit edgy and innapropriate.
To ensure it was possible for others beyond the creative director to reproduce Williamsburg’s unique voice and use the right messaging I developed a framework to guide future designers, content creators and marketers how to walk and talk like Williamsburg. This included not only a guide on what Williamsburg's voice and tone was but their brand pillars.

Thanks to this this system and framework not only was I able to write content and marketing copy for The Burg but also ended up naming some menu items.

The Burg Identity

In just a few seconds people have an opinion on a business based entirely off a visual experience. Because of this it is extremely important to refine and control the identity system to ensure that the first impression is a positive one.

For Williamsburg's identity system we had to carefully tread the line between who they were and who they wanted to be. To develop the system I designed 3 brandscapes based on the insights from the discovery session and research. The exercise helped us get a direction of what we could and couldn’t do with the identity.
three brandscapes featuring williamsburg styled graphics
Williamsburg Brandscapes
“Jack had all the skills, tools, and the knowledge to take an already well established brand, put his own twist and stamp on it, whilst always respecting the already established position the brand has within the community and our client base. That is a credit to him. You have to respect the past, and the present to be successful in the future.”
- Luke Fielding, Director, Williamsburg
Text that reads welcome to the jungle with a line through the jungle and williamsburgs logo next to itA collection of graphics used in williamsburgs identity

Supporting graphics

In order to stay respectful to Williamsburg's established style the new visual language repurposed parts of the old style which had no clear system to it. We also incorperated a fair few new elements inpsired by the graffiti artwork around the restraunt, The Burg's social media post style and the overall character and charm of the staff at the Burg.
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Williamsburg originally wasn't provided with any assets. This made it difficult for anyone beyond the original designers to create consistent brand graphics. To help future designers and Williamsburg I created a handful of evergreen graphics to streamline the creation of communication.
“The Burg is definitely the 'coolest place in town'. The design work has taken our social presence to the next level! We are edgy, cool, modern and nothing like anywhere else in town. We are our own identity, we are trend setters, and Jack's work has truly stamped that as the truth, we are not just saying it, we are doing it! ”
- Luke Fielding, Director, Williamsburg

New Website

Digital platforms such as social media and websites have become the primary platforms to influence brand and a vital tool for marketing. Williamsburg’s website needed to provide a user experience that not only helped their customers and positively influenced the Williamsburg brand but allowed them to make fast changes in order to keep up with today’s pace of change.
A notebook with a website wireframe drawn in it
Website Wireframing

User Experience

At the core of website designis understanding the users needs, the businesses goals and marrying those in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. In discovery we foundthat Williamsburg’s users needed the ability to decide if The Burg was the right place for them. Just a text based menu wasn’t capable of this.
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To meet the users needs I designed and developed an interactive website that showcased Williamsburg’s atmosphere, complete with a visual based, instagram inspired menu designed with mobile scrolling in mind as the majority of people looking for a place to eat are doing so on mobile.
A screenshot of Webflows content management system
Webflow's Content Management System

Content Management

To give Williamsburg the ultimate flexibility and ability to edit content on their website effortlessly I built the site in a new platform called webflow.

Webflow’s content management system was perfect for what Williamsburg needed, it was simple and easy to use with almost no learning curve. That combined with the ability to create an entirely custom non template based website relatively fast and easy made Webflow the superior choice over other platforms such as Squarespace or WordPress or traditional development.
An iphone, macbook and ipad showing Williamsburgs website williamsburgs home page and the wireframe of the home page next to itWilliamsburgs Home page
View the website
“There was never a moment I ever felt uncomfortable or that the project was not within my creative vision. Jack challenged my thought process to bring out exactly what I wanted The Burg to be. A seamless process that I'm positive could help develop future clients and their needs."
The Williamsburg Logo
Luke Fielding
Director
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