Lean Bean – brand identity

Lean Bean approached us to create a unique brand identity as the business was faced with significant growth across Dublin and Ireland. Lean Bean is a well-established Fresh Food Outlet in the centre of Dublin, serving up some of the tastiest breakfast and lunch time meals on the island. Reputation soon spread of the fast, fresh offering across the city and demand for the product dictated an increase in stores. With this in the pipe-line the owner of Lean Bean realised opportunity to re-define and re-state the brand purpose, look and feel and communications. With the naming already in the mix it was our job to deliver an identity to reflect the reputation and truthfully communicate this forward-thinking delicious offering.

In their own words:

Founded in 2017, Lean Bean is a destination for healthy food served fast. To us healthy means real food made from scratch. Lean Bean was built on the idea that today people are time poor and the food on offer is of low nutritional value. We want to change that by providing real food, real fast at an affordable price. We believe education around food is very important to our success and that people are actively making more health-conscious decisions.

First off was the logo. We created a unique word mark based on a Stencil font which provides a sense of tradition, sophistication and modernity. The way the letters fall in the stacked version of the logo allowed the typography to play over the line ever so slightly to create an interesting, stand out identity. Paired with the traditional stencil style mark we introduced a modern san-serif to bring harmony in the brand across headlines, menus and body copy that was to be used. Clarity between the two typefaces is important as you will see throughout the menu and website, a natural yin and yang balance really elevates the brand and gives it strength to roll out across any medium required. 

Following the craft of the word mark we created a colour scheme to suit the offering and attract the right audience. Numerous concepts were put forward but the pairing of the fresh ‘lemon’ and the strong ‘teal’ working together provided something completely new for the industry landscape. Teal’s of course reflective of the green ingredients with the hint of Lemon to freshen things up across the brand. The completed palette is extremely ‘fresh’ and packs a real punch when placed in front of the fantastic plates, ingredients, drinks and interiors at Lean Bean.

One of Lean Beans mantra’s is sustainability, as seen here:

Sustainability

We are always trying to reduce our carbon footprint. Over 90% of all our packaging is now compostable with some of the remaining being used from either plant based or recycled plant-based material which is 90% less carbon.

This Lean Bean ethos of sustainability sparked an idea for a new style to accompany the word mark and colour palette. With this in mind we created a unique set of bespoke illustrations which are intertwined across brand textures, backgrounds, interiors and the website. The illustrations are hand-sketched and really bring an air of sustainability to the whole brand personality. This in toe we wanted to introduce a strapline to sum this up. Eat Smart was born. Eat smart encompasses once again the brand ethos of Scratch Cooking, Transparency, Healthy Living and great food. We felt it was a much easier was of letting the customer know that ‘we do healthy food’ and encouraging them to join the food revolution. 

Lean Bean very much is a revolution in fast food and we continue to work with them in the brand roll out and evolution of the business.

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