FAMALAND is an immersive event space for arts, music, drinks, food, wellness, entertainment and comedy that aims to drive positive impact and bring joy to Hong Kong. They hold events frequently at PMQ to encourage and bring together the community of Hong Kong. After splitting from their former collaboration partner, FAMALAND needed a rebrand to take them in a new direction. They wanted to attract a more youthful crowd and to have an edgier vibe.

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Process

kith&kin worked with FAMALAND in a series of workshops to understand and narrow down the new focus and unique direction of the restaurant. Together we discovered that FAMALAND wanted to move more towards an entertainment and music focus and to make the place more than just a restaurant that does sustainable Cantonese food. They wanted to make FAMALAND a unique place where something is always happening and where each visit will be different from the last. Another insight was that 40% of PMQ visitors are tourists, and so FAMALAND wanted to shift their focus towards the local Hong Kong crowd.

A key challenge for the design of the visual identity was that the place has 3 very different moods and occasions that all sit under one roof (a living canvas interactive digital exhibition on sustainability and endangered animals, a private dining area, and a general restaurant and bar area). We had to find a way to design an identity that would allow for each area to be unique yet still be connected with the overall brand.

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Solution

Our solution was to create a visual identity using text cloud and highlighting. The text clouds are used to list out all the core values of FAMALAND and the highlighter is used to bring attention to the most important word of the cloud. This allows for lots of information to be presented at once yet still indicates the main point. This idea of highlighting was also applied in the menu design, which is designed to be interactive where customers highlight their orders.

The simple design stands out due to its use of repetition. The identity uses repetition rather than size to give prominence to certain pieces of information. This was designed to give the brand a peculiar and distinguishable identity.

For the visual assets, we used photo manipulation to create surreal images. The images feature a mix of rural and urban Hong Kong mixed together, based on the concept of the restaurant working with local sustainable farms all the while existing in a mega-urban city.

As for the design of the venue space, we wanted to let the history of PMQ show through and so the design was purposely unpolished and featured raw concrete. We used strip lighting to transform bar/club entry. We worked closely with the interior designer to make sure the physical space and the identity were aligned throughout.