Typophile

Font for a Sushi Restaurant

Hayang

I'm a student making a website for a sushi restaurant, and I'd like some help choosing fonts for the logo and for text.

To give some background: The restaurant owner said he wanted to use white, green, and orange, "fresh" colors that emphasize the freshness of his sushi, and the light atmosphere of his small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant where sunlight pours into a mostly white room with a green/orange/white tiled ceiling.

Compared to other sushi restaurants, his sushi is very creative, and very flavorful; their tagline is "Rockin' Sushi". At the same time, he is a very masterful chef who has many years of experience as a head chef in California.

I want to choose a font to pair with their logo, but I'm having a hard time finding one that will look good on a light color scheme, fit well with his fish symbol, and also give the impression of quality fitting of an experienced chef.

Most sushi restaurants go for "brushstroke" fonts and put them on very dark backgrounds, since they want to convey a traditional and high-class atmosphere, but I don't think that will work too well. At the same time many other fonts look too commercial to be appetizing; Singo Sushi is known around here as a hidden jewel that nobody knows about, yet is of the best quality.

Any suggestions for a font to use on their logo? Should I consider not using the fish symbol?

Attached is their old logo, my rerender of it, and an attempt at combining the symbol with Clarendon/Open Sans.

AttachmentSize
Singo current logo.jpg57.65 KB
Singo Logo Rerender.png10.08 KB
Singo Web Comp B.png1.01 MB
Nick Curtis

Rockin’ letterforms...
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/nicksfonts/slugfest-nf/

Hrant H Papazian

How secure is the shark's job?

hhp

Hayang

The owner said he is open to changing the shark symbol, although he likes the feeling it carries, as do I. Singo Sushi has attitude in both flavor and atmosphere. They've been using that logo for about 4 years now.

Hrant H Papazian

I for one actually like the idea of a shark. But I'm unsure of the execution; and the particular execution will help determine what font(s) to use.

hhp

James Michaels

I don't know a lot about sushi, but to me the style of the shark drawing seems off. You might want to experiment with versions that retain the attitude but have more of an oriental (if that's the right word) style.

> Should I consider not using the fish symbol?

Since they've used it for years, if you decide to eliminate it you might want to phase it out gradually. Maybe use it small for awhile before eliminating it, or take it out of the logo but use it as a graphic element in the menus, etc. Maybe I'm being overcautious but restaurants often operate with very small profit margins and I'd be cautious about totally eliminating a symbol they're associated with.

Karl Stange

Your description of the colour scheme and modern "fresh" approach reminded me of Marc Newson's Talby design for KDDI, the only phones that I have ever viewed as desirable (fun) objects. Another aspect of those designs that I like are the simple icons. Perhaps the shark could be subtly updated to clean up and simplify the design and perhaps change the colours to bring it in line with everything else, it seems to me more jaunty than edgy at the moment.

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