Porky's & Play A retail rebrand with hand painted lettering & vinyl fit out
THE LOWDOWN
Porky’s restaurant was synonymous with pigging out on hearty finger lickin’ grub and knocking back a good old pint of draught, but the Bankside branch had a whole other side to it that most weren’t privy to: beer pong.
The drinking game provides laughs at lunch and downtime at dinnertime, proving to be the perfect after-work pursuit for city folk, but the entertainment side of the establishment just wasn’t apparent enough and so a tweak to the title came into play – triggering a rebrand that called for Glyphics’ signmaking skills.
THE SPECS
Adding ‘& Play’ was a small yet significant change in terms of the reach of the business, while the move away from BBQ food to American style diner had a big impact on design.
Porky’s creative marketing firm, R Design, contacted us to discuss the evolution of the outlet’s branding – from a monochrome colour scheme with a simplistic typeface that gave the impression of an unassuming smokehouse, to an unmissable, sassy style that recalls the buzz of a busy bar and retro eathouse; achieved by making the palette more striking with accents of red, and bolder lettering emblazoned with thunderbolts of bright faux neon.
The client wanted the spirit of their interiors to match the high spirits of their customers, and requested various vinyl signs and a giant hand painted wall mural to complete the kit out, asking us to make do with the makeover within a tight two month time period. Our estimators are old hogs at this now – they promptly attended a site visit to scope out the scale of the project and despite the artisan element of the brief, felt it was a reasonable request to fast track.
Being conscious of where to look for potential pitfalls and knowing what information we needed to create an accurate quote propelled us past the ideas phase and into the reality of production. We met with the owners of the business and agreed on a final proof of design, and got the printers rolling to produce a bespoke vinyl wallpaper to bring all the venue’s little nooks and crannies in line with the new aesthetic.
While that happened, our signwriter took to the warm orange wall at the heart of the restaurant with a cool white wash of paint, moving between ground level and ladder height to scale three metres of brick with his lettering skills. Bringing such a large creation to life in just two days on a rough surface was never going to be a mean feat and it was demanding, but if you give us a challenge, we’ll ‘down it’ so to speak!
And so, extra hands were brought in to fulfil our promise as well as any gaps in the brushwork. We rounded off the intricate job of layering the words WORK and PLAY in a bone-like ivory with the brand new name and logo in a chalky black, which was then overlaid with a zigzag of hot LEDs to represent the trajectory of a ping pong ball and instil a neon-esque boost of vibrancy.
Two further days were spent installing the rolls of vinyl signage being made back at our shop in Shoreditch, adhering them to select areas to help section the space and create little dens to socialise in – transforming what was once the vibe of a dated parlour to a destination for fresh food and ‘full-bodied’ fun.
Not unusually, we were met with a last minute proposal of some add-ons, and were all too happy to provide the finishing touches for Porky’s & Play, who are now officially, too hot to trot.
