7 Restaurant Logo Design Ideas to Craft a Highly Appealing Brand

A restaurant’s logo design is one of the things that separates it from its competitors. While they may share some of the same services and products, their unique brand image is what sells.

Every beginner restaurateur needs to understand that a logo is not just a logo. It is an identity, a story, and a product in itself. And it should be considered carefully, especially if you play in a well-saturated market like restaurants.

This article will help you maneuver the restaurant logo design process. We will lay down tested and proven tips for you to manage this crucial step.

So whether you create the logo using a restaurant logo maker or hire a professional designer, the final product will communicate your real brand identity to your consumers.

What are you waiting for? Read our restaurant logo design ideas and craft an appealing logo for your restaurant that will impact your customers.

7 Restaurant Logo Design Ideas

1. Think about what you want your logo to communicate

There’s no such thing as one size, or one concept fits all in logo design. The design should go along with your restaurant brand identity.

So before you create a logo or even conceptualize one, you need to decide the kind of overall vibe you want to project. Try using an online tool like Placeit to create compelling and creative assets to communicate what your restaurant is about.

Do you want to come off as a luxurious place or a casual diner? Do you want to be seen as an exclusive food destination or a child-friendly eatery?

All these and other vital questions lead you to properly formulate a main visual: a regal logo, an all-around icon, an elegant typeface, etc.

For instance, a fine-dining restaurant will probably steer away from eccentric, popping, and flaring logo design because they want to exude an exclusive premium vibe.

Usually, a higher-end restaurant may want to replicate other Michelin-star food places with premium, letter-based (usually sans, serif, and script typefaces) rendered in either black and white or toned-down color palettes.

The opposite applies to casual diners like fast food and canteens. They don’t need to be elegant. Vivid, edgy, fun, and over-the-top logos are more likely to attract vast crowds.

Try incorporating our restaurant logo design ideas into your branding process, and you will create a more powerful customized logo as a result.

2. Don’t be afraid to use unrelated concepts or themes

Remember that the ultimate goal of your restaurant logo is to be easily recognizable. Sometimes, the best way to be distinct is to use a completely unrelated concept or theme as part of your business logo design.

The Apple logo is not related to computers, yet it was an effective visual branding for the tech giant. You might ask, “Does it work for restaurants?” It sure does.

Just look at the three-Michelin star restaurant called The French Laundry. Clothing is not usually associated with food, yet it gained recognition.

The same goes for playfully worded restaurant names such as Ninja Akasaka, Steam Plant, or Beetle House NYC. This technique works for wordmarks and logomarks alike.

3. Use mascots or animal-related icons for fast foods

If fast food is your path, then replicate the success of other fast-food restaurants by starting with a mascot. What would be a good personality for your brand?

If you want to project a friendly image, a cute animal costume such as a bird or a panda can do wonders. You can create your own persona like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Jollibee did.

Your mascot can also be the main icon of your logo. Look at Wendy’s and KFC.

4. Use popular energizing colors

Have you ever noticed how most famous fast foods and diners use red as their brand color? Well, it’s not coincidental because red is one of the colors that help stimulate the appetite.

Read more: Restaurant Design Tips

On the contrary, blue and similar shades are appetite suppressants. That’s why you rarely see blues in diners and food companies.

The warm spectrum, which consists of red, orange, pink, and yellow, are suitable for restaurant brands. Any potential consumers are subconsciously compelled to act and eat out in these locations. Try these colors and see if they work for your ideal brand image.

If not, again, these are just guidelines, so feel free to follow what’s in your heart even if the colors don’t belong in the warm spectrum. Black, green, brown, and many other colors and gradients can work perfectly.

And, of course, since we’re talking about logos, it’s fair to say that whatever colors you choose, you need to translate them well on your other visuals, be it on wordmarks, icons, websites, banners, etc.

You might also like: The Best Digital Menu Design Ideas for Boosting Sales in 2022

5. Avoid non-edible, unappetizing items

Although you can use unrelated items and concepts to stand out, still err on the side of caution by not placing inedible and unappetizing items in your logo.

As much as possible, use your logo to communicate that you are a food brand. Objects that might say otherwise, such as soap, car tires, laptops, or broomsticks, should be avoided.

If you find use in any of the images above for the kind of brand you want to create, tread this path carefully. Make sure that you play with the words and design the logo in a way that is still appetizing and appropriate to the food industry.

6. Use an expressive typeface

One of the main characteristics of a well-made restaurant monogram or wordmark is a unique and expressive typeface.

While a typical serif might work for high-end brands, it may not work for fast food restaurants with a more casual vibe.

Related: 3 Secret Menu Writing Tips

In such a case, it’s better not to limit your creativity when designing a letter-based logo. Incorporate playful color and flair and use an evocative typeface that elicits action.

However, if you’re a high-end brand, which lots of restaurants are, elegant but straightforward serifs or sans serifs are ideal.

Black-and-white rendering is standard, too, as well as brown, white-only, or black-only. In this case, the brand’s appeal now lies in food service, food quality, and interior design.

But for most fast food, diners, and cafes, the logo needs to be eye-catching because of tight competition. There are too many fast foods, diners, and cafeterias, unlike fine dining restaurants, which are more difficult to find around town.

Therefore, cafes and fast-food diners need to amp up their visual branding so they can stand out in the crowd, or else they vanish in the competition.

7. Use negative space (black and white) smartly

Although it’s tempting to put on as many colors as you want, it’s best to try out your restaurant logo design in a simple black and white first.

This color combination brings out the flaws in the design that a colorful one won’t otherwise show. Colors can distract you from creating an impactful concept or image.

Black and white can strip the design bare and just project the story it communicates with the colors’ exception.

Also, often your logo will be plastered and uploaded across different platforms, sometimes sans the colors, like how Mcdonald’s shows their golden arch in full black color or how Jollibee’s black mascot is still recognizable.

Once you have created a working logo design or a suitable typeface, you can layer it with different colors. Colors in themselves tell a story, and they are a vital branding piece too.

Final Words

While logos can sway your customers to act in your favor, your service and food will ultimately matter most. Food is the main attraction on social media and in ads. Services highlight the dining experience shared over hashtags and stakeholder meetings.

But to get a loyal crowd talking positively about your brand, you need to lure them into your restaurant first. In a saturated market like the restaurant one, sometimes, getting people to dine in with you is the first hurdle. This is a problem that good restaurant logo design can help with.

We hope you learned a lesson or two from our collection of restaurant logo design ideas and insights into creating a restaurant logo.

This article is a guest post.

Author Bio:

Marvin Rey Espino is a marketing specialist from DesignCrowd and BrandCrowd. His background in journalism marked his career in reporting and freelance writing. He has written many articles on marketing, technology, and small businesses. Outside work, Marvin reads a lot and hoards well-written pieces for inspiration. And he sings and bakes goodies too.