Lost Bowls De Guadalupe
Concept Development · Brand Identity · Art Direction
Los Bowls de Guadalupe is a plant based eatery on the Tulum hotel road, serving organic bowls, juices and elixirs all day. We worked on the concept and built the branding, from what the place was going to be through to how it looks on a wall, a cup and a menu.
SITUATION
Tulum is the hardest place in the world to open a wellness concept, because every other door on that road is already one. Organic, plant based, sustainably sourced, all of it true and none of it distinguishing. Los Bowls de Guadalupe needed to be a place people chose on purpose rather than the one they happened to walk past.
DIAGNOSIS
The category had eaten the differentiation. Every menu said the same words and every storefront used the same palette, so the entire strip read as one restaurant with a dozen entrances. Solving that with a nicer logo would have been useless. The concept itself had to be decided first, because branding cannot rescue a place that does not know what it is.
DECISION
Name the thing before designing it. We built the concept around the bowl as something offered rather than sold, treated with a little reverence, in a room built for people to sit in and talk. Sacred and casual at the same time. Once that idea was fixed, every design decision after it had an answer to check against.
WHAT WE BUILT
The concept for Los Bowls de Guadalupe, developed from the idea through to what the space is for and how it should feel to walk into. A full brand identity with a primary mark and the system around it. Menu and packaging design, so the cup somebody carries down the road is doing the advertising. Signage and environmental graphics built for a location that is judged from a moving car and from a chair.
