Featured image for A Late Night Delivery Service Gets a Fun New Look

A Late Night Delivery Service Gets a Fun New Look

by Natalie Mouradian on 05/29/2018 | 4 Minute Read

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the Small Monsters has created the branding and packaging for Yumee, a Montreal-based food delivery service. From 6pm to 3am, Yumee serves delicious treats and sweets to hungry night owls. 

Yumee launched in 2016, with the goal of delivering chocolate bars and chips to students staying up late. After several months, the company expanded its offering, adding hot meals like pizza, chicken wings, and poutine. Despite rapid initial growth and strong demand, customer feedback showed that the packaging and branding wasn’t resonating with the market, so they turned to the Montreal branding and packaging agency the Small Monsters for help. The challenge for the Monsters was to create a brand that would be more memorable and engaging in order to fend off competitors that were already starting to eat into their client’s market share.

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“The initial packaging had been thrown together in a rush, and was a mishmash of graphic styles, and packaging sizes, as the founders focussed on getting the business running. Because of this, the customer experience was largely unbranded and almost anonymous — you got your food, but that was all” said the Small Monsters Creative Director, Sunil Sarwal. “We wanted to make the delivery a more personal experience, one that people would have fun with, and remember. We also wanted to reduce the number of different styles and sizes of packaging required, giving our client a more streamlined and easier-to-manage inventory.”

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The Small Monsters explored structural options for packaging that could be used for multiple types of orders. At the same time, they looked at different ways of creating and expressing the company’s voice, from patterns inspired by vintage fast food containers, to illustrations based around the theme of “nighttime”. It was during the initial exploration phase that Lead Designer Heather McDonell proposed an approach that stuck — a combination of short, funny phrases and icons that would have clients turning the boxes over to read every side. 

"Every member of the creative team pitched phrases until we had covered part of the studio wall, in English and French” said Sarwal. "We took our favourites, and presented them to the client printed on a poster. The client really responded to the boldness of the approach, and eventually the poster became the template for the new brand."

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The type was rendered in handwritten fonts, and the icons were given rough, paper-cut-by-scissors edges, to make things casual, playful, and handmade. 

The result is a bold, and instantly recognizable brand, that speaks to its market without speaking down to them. 

"The approach they used showed our customers our personality”, said co-founder Yumee Ramzi Malas. “Now our customers tell us we really stand out.”

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Agency: the Small MonstersClient: Yumee Inc.Creative Director: Sunil SarwalLead designer: Heather LynnDesigner: Lucile GuarnacciaCopywriting: Heather Lynn, Camille Bégin, Chloé Morneau

Location: Canada