Easy Soup
The first cafe of Easy Soup (a healthy fast food chain) opened in Minsk in autumn 2018. A new visual design system has been developed for it specifically for the Belarusian market. The brand strategy and design were covered by Fabula Branding, and the architectural solution was implemented by the team of Nikoengineering.
The Concept
Easy Soup represents the format of fast casual which is extremely relevant today. Fast casual brands support and develop a balanced approach to nutrition and combine express service (typical for fast food) with the benefits of healthy food.
How did the concept of the business affect the design? First of all, the simplicity, convenience, and naturalness typical for this format had to be reflected in the corporate style using colours and other visual means. Secondly, as the points of sale were expected be located in malls with high levels of informational noise, all design elements had to be quickly and easily readable. Thirdly, the new point of sale would offer over 60 types of soup with the product range changing every week. Therefore the design solutions for the menu, branded ware, and other media had to emphasize different tastes of various positions but still remain universally applicable. And so on.
Emotional barriers also had to be taken into account. Soup still remains a home or, at best, a lunch dish. The wide audience used to disgusting soups from school canteens is only starting to understand that soups can be tasty, healthy, and now also convenient. When opening a fast casual sales point in the era of fast food and street food, one has to educate the customers about healthy nutrition and at the same time not to repel them with dullness.
Kirill Borokhov, caterer: The international trend of healthy food is now coming to Minsk, but our city still lacks projects in this segment, let alone in the fast casual format. We felt a change in market trends, took into account our own needs, and tried to understand what the city craved for. But it is always important to present the information correctly. When planning to open our sales point in a mall, we realized that food courts are occupied by major active players. People that come to food courts make decisions about what and where to eat in split second, that is why it is important to explain the idea of the place and to show our advantages clearly and quickly.
