The Rhody Hen Cafe is an iconic breakfast and lunch spot in the heart of Rhode Island. The food is amazing, but their logo and branding needed some work. I was tasked with creating a whole new logo, brand, and menu to give the Rhody Hen a visual identity that truly represented its values. My goal was to convey the cafe’s cozy ambiance and comforting food through this rebrand.
primary research
visited the company website
built moodboard
logo ideation
sketched possible logo designs – playing with images of hens, coffee cups, bees, etc.
finalized sketch
vectorized in Adobe Illustrator
With the logo and branding refreshed, I shifted my focus to designing a cohesive menu that aligned with the cafe’s new visual identity. The most difficult part of the process was fitting all the food and drink items into the space I had. To solve this, I decided to create a separate, smaller drinks menu, which gave more real estate to food items on the main menu. This project ultimately helped improve my ability to research, represent a brand authentically, and think creatively to solve design challenges.
process
menu research
copied all menu items and prices from the website onto a separate document
fixed grammatical errors & conventions
Researching this company was one of the most crucial foundational steps in my process. Through my research, I learned that the cafe’s owners had a strong passion for saving bees and included a small bee in their original logo to reflect this. Recognizing the importance of this value, I sought to maintain the bee imagery in a more subtle way by encasing my new logo in a honeycomb shape.
layout sketches
sketched layout designs
decided on front & back menu, with a separate tent menu dedicated to drinks
final design
created graphics in Adobe Illustrator
laid out menu items and images in Adobe InDesign
