Bobby’s Burger Palace

Bobby's logo
Pentagram’s new identity for Bobby’s Burger Palace in Lake Grove, Long Island.
Conveniently, each word in the name has six letters: sandwich them together and,
rather nicely, you get two buns, a burger (and some lettuce)

Burgers. They’ve been getting a bit of a bad press recently. So it’s nice to see a design studio having a decent pop at designing an identity for a range of burger restaurants, which, these days, could be thought of as a potentially healthy-eating (ahem) hot potato. But Pentagram has firmly grasped the buns here, so to speak, with its bright and bold identity work for celebrity chef Bobby Flay’s Burger Palace. To us it’s indicative of the time when chomping responsibly on the odd burger was supposed to be fun. Well at Bobby’s it clearly is, and Pentagram look to have made the experience a little more enjoyable…

Designed by the studio’s Michael Bierut and Joe Marianek, the identity further informs the design of the restaurant itself, which was created by the Rockwell Group, and also the look of the menus, uniforms and signage. And the chunky type is set in a customised version of Hoefler & Frere-Jones‘ Knockout font.

Bobby's packaging
BBP packaging

Bobby's menus
BBP menus

Bobby's interior
The interior of the restaurant, designed by the Rockwell Group and based on Pentagram’s identity

Bobby's crunchified
Crunchified: to have chips (fries) added to ones burger. Nice type!

Bobby's front
The outside of Bobby’s, should you be passing the Smith Haven Mall in Lake
Grove, Long Island sometime soon

More images at Pentagram’s blog.

Comments...

Now, I’m all for design that doesn’t take itself seriously, and I’m pleased that Pentagram loosened their tie, so to speak, for its identity work for Bobby Flay’s Burger Palace, but am I the only one who thinks the logo is simplistic, obvious and garish, even for a burger joint?

Reality Check
13/Aug/08, 8:54 pm

Predictable colour scheme. Don’t like the typeface. Identity looks like a 50’s pastiche for a movie set. Lotta words in the identity - Bobby’s Burger’s would been better?
palace it ain’t.

dave
14/Aug/08, 10:19 am

it is pretty predictable…

simon
14/Aug/08, 2:29 pm

I like it. I don’t expect or even hope visual synapse popping from burger joint branding, but this does the job. Simple, clean, friendly and with that element of kitsch that fits the interior architecture of the place and the belljar that is long island. Done.

honest joe
14/Aug/08, 3:07 pm

I would love to see the other logo design concepts presented to the client before they got sold on this design. This could have been so much better with some very simple graphic design skills applied to the font. If I presented a client with a logo design like this then I would expect them to ask for their money back. This just does not do it for me on any level. As they say “it’s not big and it’s not clever”.

Not the best brand I have seen reinvented. Sorry but thats my personal opinion.

Simonmc
15/Aug/08, 8:07 am

I like it a lot. It’s bold, fresh, clever and entirely appropriate. I think Mr.Bierut has already applied substantially more than ‘very simple graphic design skills’ to the project.

Adam
15/Aug/08, 1:10 pm

@Simonmc: what are these ’simple graphic design skills’ you talk of?

I forgot to say that the name, even if it is chintzy, fits also.

honest joe
15/Aug/08, 1:53 pm

since when is the meat in burger red?

jim
15/Aug/08, 3:40 pm

They must be selling a lot of burgers to afford Pentagram.

Creepers
15/Aug/08, 4:47 pm

Half of me wants to hate it and half of me wants to love it. I really can’t make up my mind. Like the architecture and interior and also the packaging, but the logo as a stand alone element isn’t the best in my opinion. I think it’s a well designed when looked upon as a brand rather than just a logo.

And I agree with Jim, a red burger to me suggests it’s raw :O)

Pete
19/Aug/08, 1:29 pm

You get what you expect. Low priced, good ol’ burgers most probably. No fuzz around. Not over designed. Kept as simple as peoples’ habit to grab one of those. A fast and good bite. No big promises. The ’style’ takes one back to the good old time when a burger was a burger. Yet it is simple and good executed with ’style’ (interiour). Therefore is quite witty. — if that is what the burger palace intended to be.

Red, bloody, fresh meat, Yes! - Why taking it so literarly? ;)

Tanja
19/Aug/08, 2:51 pm

Remind anyone of this site logo:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Lotta
19/Aug/08, 2:51 pm

Maybe it’s just me but it seems like these clients who obviously have a big budget, go to these companies like Pentagram, whose work I respect a lot,just for the famous
factor. It looks like there wasn’t much effort put into this at all and anything they did would have been accepted. I’m sure there are many smaller studios around who would have put much more thought into the project and been much more creative

yashar
19/Aug/08, 5:04 pm

A nice exercise in justified type, or am I just being cynical?

Fritz Fitton
20/Aug/08, 1:55 pm

Re: Lotta

Very good point!

David
20/Aug/08, 3:36 pm

it looks pretty tacky to me. just keep thinking the only reason why anyone is even blogging about it is because pentagram did it. I know there’s been a simplistic and clever design wave going on these last years, but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s good. It’s a logo for a burger place for god sake, how could it be next to an architecture article?

John
20/Aug/08, 4:40 pm

I agree that a smaller studio would have perhaps put in a lot more thought and pushed the ideas a bit further than this predictable result.

However - burger joint, or architecture - it is all about creating good design… no matter what the product.

erica
20/Aug/08, 5:48 pm

I agree erica, but lets then agree on posting about ‘good design’, not predictable things that aren’t really worth mentioning

John
20/Aug/08, 9:04 pm

It’s terrific. A witty, current riff on the iconic fast food graphics of the 60s and 70s. Get a sense of humour, people.

Der Senator
20/Aug/08, 11:05 pm

It’s OK but really not sure it is worthy of a CR post. Sure if it wasn’t Bierut’s then we wouldn’t be reading about it.

Emperor Rudie
22/Aug/08, 5:48 am

@John: How do we agree what is ‘good design’?

honest joe
22/Aug/08, 5:01 pm

This is great, it might seem conventional and understated, but isn’t thats what’s great about burgers. “Tacky” not atall the logo type would be tacky if used in a gourmet restuarant, but it’s not.

Pentagram know how much witt to inject into each project they do and they’ve hit it.

Pentagram get the opportunity to push identity’s all the time - we are talking about a burger fast food restuarant - not Bergdorfs.

p.s (Simonmc) theres more to an identity then a logo.

Gaynoir
29/Aug/08, 5:08 pm

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