Uno Tre Otto
Uno Tre Otto is a Farm to Table, Italian restaurant located in an affluent suburban/college community.
This was a rebranding project with the goal of updating the overall brand image, with a focus on updating the client's the logo and website in order to bring it into a alignment with the restaurant's reputation in a way that emphasizes the high quality elegance of simple, organic, seasonal, farm-to-table food, in a charmingly rustic, casual setting.
The restaurant is highly rated by patrons, but is described as a "hidden gem" because the restaurant is hard to find, and its branding and website are both dated and unprofessionally executed which discourages potential patrons.
This was rebrand/redesign whose goals were to design branding and a website that were clean, professional looking, that more accurately represented the restaurant, and provided a modern, stable, fast website that aligned with current standards, improving brand awareness and restaurant traffic.
The overall brand image, including the logo and website will be updated to bring it in alignment with the restaurant’s image and reputation, and emphasizes the focus on the high quality elegance of simple, organic, seasonal, farm to table food.
Table of Contents
Title 01
Uno Tre Otto is a farm to table restaurant inspired by cuisine and style of traditional, rustic, Italian trattorias.
The "Farm" is Amy's Farm in nearby Ontario California, and the restaurant are owned by a husband and wife team, and the restaurant is meant to be an extension and showcase for the farm.
The restaurant is part of the slow food moment, and so phrases such as “...from scratch” and “Seasonal” are both taken very seriously, and a large part of the unique appeal of the restaurant.
The restaurant is located in old, historic building in the heart of the village that lends itself to the rustic theme. The name Uno Tre Otto, which is Italian for 138, is derived from the buildings original address.
Roasted Bone Marrow with Salsa Verde, & Parmigiano-Reggiano
Mafaldine in Truffle Butter with Black Pepper, freshly shaved Black Truffle & Parmigiano-Reggiano
Agnolotti filled with Roasted Beet & Carrot in a rich Bucheron Cream sauce, finished with Pine Nut, Aged Balsamic, Lemon Zest and Green Garlic
Uno-Tre-Otto has relatively a limited menu that changes frequently based on what is currently in season and what is available from the farm. The menu usually features two to four special and, supported by a few "regular" dishes. Although these too, change seasonally.
Both the pasta and bread are made fresh daily on-site. The wheat is organic, purchased in small batches, and milled locally in Pasadena.
The dishes are simple but elegant, the quality of the ingredients is second to none, and the final product is excellent and earning rave reviews.
As popular and well respected as Uno-Tre-Otto and Amy’s Farm are, brand identity seems to have had considerably less attention and effort put into it.
The existing logotype is derived from an wooden part of old wooden sign used as an address marker from the building. While there some historic significance in this, 138 is no longer the building's address and the sign used a hand carved, gothic style typeface that, although rustic, also looks very forced, and amateurish.
Similarly, while the existing website seems to be on the right track, it is none responsive, does not utilize modern functions like an online reservation system, contains multiple broken elements, and does not rise to rise to the level of competing sites.
Uno Tre Otto is located in the Claremont village; an upper middle-class, highly-affluent area with no less than six major, private universities in the same community.
Patrons are still typically affluent people who have a decided preference for high-quality, organic fare and are willing to pay for that. Although Uno Tre Otto is relatively inexpensive, especially when comparing quality to price.
Although the local area has a high student population, many of who frequent the restaurant, it is not dominated by the students. Those students who do dine at Uno Tre Otto are usually on a date. While children are not prohibited, they are uncommon. This seems to be an organic result of the restaurant’s location and atmosphere as opposed to any effort to openly discourage children.
Title 05
The businesses in the surrounding village are roughly 30-40% food and beverage related. Of those, three, including Uno Tre Otto, identify as having Italian based or inspired cuisine. Of those, all three identify as fine-dining, but only two really rise to that description; and of the all restaurants and eateries in the village, and in the surrounding suburbs, only Uno Tre Otto qualifies as “Farm to Table”.
As such Uno Tre Otto occupies a unique niche in size, ambiance, and quality, and in spite of the large number of other available options, both in the immediate and surrounding communities, Uno Tre Otto has built a following that results in a steady stream of full-bookings even during weeknights.
Tutti Mangia bills itself as an Italian Chophouse.
It is an upscale fine-dining restaurant with a full bar, extensive wine list, and a expansive menu featuring a number of classic dishes from Italian cuisine.
The website is clean, responsive, well laid out and designed, presenting exactly the kind of image an elegant fine-dining restaurant needs to.
The website is extensive without being cluttered, and offers the ability tosample menus, make reservations, order to go food, and sign up for event updates.
While the style, imagery, and brand presentation are different, the Tutti Mangia website is an excellent model of what Uno Tre Otto should be aiming for in online representation.Aruffo’s has the feel of your classic neighborhood standard trattoria. Standards being the operative word.
The menu is huge, including all of the standards. Looking at it you can almost hear Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra singing their standards in accompaniment.
They a full bar, but the cocktail menu is also exceptionally standard, and the wine list is very small
While Arufflo's is a step above most of the mom and pop cucinas in the area, it feels little cliché. An impression that continues throughout the website.
Right away its easy to see the difference in the quality of designbetween a website like Tutti Mangia and Aruffo’s.
Aruffo’s is a excellent example of an outdated or near miss, and what not to do in website design.
Tutti Mangia bills itself as an
Italian Chophouse.
It is an upscale fine-dining restaurant with a full bar, extensive wine list, and a expansive menu featuring a number of classic dishes from Italian cuisine.
The website is clean, responsive, well laid out and designed, presenting exactly the kind of image an elegant fine-dining restaurant needs to.
The website is extensive without being cluttered, and offers the ability tosample menus, make reservations, order to go food, and sign up for event updates.
While the style, imagery, and brand presentation are different, the Tutti Mangia website is an excellent model of what Uno Tre Otto should be aiming for in online representation.
Although this project was technically a rebrand/redesign, the restaurant; the food, the people, and the ambiance of the restaurant itself are the brand, and what Uno Tre Otto what it is.
In assembling the mood board for this project we looked to the food, people, and restaurant and those qualities of those.
Fresh, organic, high-quality, farm-to-table food. Artisan bread, handmade pasta. Craft cocktails, and a small but deep wine cellar. A rustically romantic, neighborhood Italian trattoria that is classic, and yet elegant in its simplicity, with friendly, vibrant, and fun people.
Colors - Natural, dark, warm, earthy neutral background colors that echo the warm, rustic simplicity and intimate ambiance of the restaurant and the same time bring out the colors of the food, drink, and people.
Textures - Handmade papers, rustic dark wood, natural stone and brick.
Clean continuous line drawn details.
Typography - Trajan was already being used by the restaurant for headlines in some of its printed titles. A modified Trajan was used in the Logo to suggest classic Italian, combined with a highly legible script for a more personal
The original logo is based on a wooden sign from the original building, but looked both too rustic and had more of the style and feeling of a south- western ranchero feeling than that of an Italian Trattoria.
Uno Tre Otto is Italian for 138. The origin or meaning of this number was somewhat confusing. This was apparently the address of the building, however it changed after some new construction and the city made changes to the address system.
Uno Tre Otto then became a name and not a number, and so the focus shifted to the words and representing the qualities of that name.
The Trajan font was already being used by the restaurant for menu headlines. This worked, so a modified version of Trajan that emulated some of the classic qualities of a carved Roman tablet were incorporated into the final logo, along with a highly legible script that implied the more organic characteristics of Farm-to-Table.
The Trajan font was already being used by the restaurant for menu headlines. This worked, so a modified version of Trajan that emulated some of the classic qualities of a carved Roman tablet were incorporated into the final logo, along with a highly legible script that implied the more organic characteristics of Farm-to-Table.
