Pi Bytes Rebrand

Pi Bytes is a pizza restaurant and dessert bakery. Being a small, privately owned business, they could not hire a graphic designer to produce their initial branding. Between their opening and the time I was engaged, their brand developed piecemeal, leading to a very disjointed image and non-existent brand identity. The original marquee sign had heavy firefighter imagery in homage to the owner’s work as volunteer firefighter. The window sign used a dark brown and neon lime green color combination to elicit the image of a CRT screen (look it up) in reference to the spelling of the name, which was chosen simply to be different.

Fig. 1: original window sign, marquee sign, and posted menu

Visiting the restaurant and talking with the owner/operators revealed a more personable, relaxed, low-tech feel. So, leaning into the spelling of the name for the brand ID would give customers the wrong idea about what to expect.

In deciding on a direction to suggest for the rebranding, I studied the restaurant’s reviews. The most common recurring themes in the most positive reviews were: handmade pizzas with fresh ingredients and the fact that there was a shelf of games that the customers could play while waiting and eating.

Fig. 2: Inside the restaurant

My logo concept started from a monogram of the restaurant’s name> Flipping the P and stylizing the letters produced a shape somewhat like a pizza or pie cut in quarters with one section removed. I placed it within a circle to imply a pie tin or pizza tray.

To brighten up the imagery, I added colors to each section. The colors had a dual implication. First, they represented the ingredients of a fresh made pizza: green for vegetables, gold for cheese and bread, and red for tomato sauces. Second, the primary and secondary colors are commonly used in board games and made the logo imply, without directly indicating, a playing piece for the game Trivial Pursuit.

I chose the type family Hanley for the branding primarily for two reasons. First, the inline typeface that I used on the logo itself is clean and modern while being similar to Italian street sign typography of the early twentieth century. Most customers won’t make that connection consciously, but it will say “Italian food” to them. Second, the script typeface is friendly and legible, and works well on menus and signage.