Wagamama end sting

For this brief i have chosen Wagamama as the company i wish to develop and produce a 3-5 second end sting for. Wagamama was created in April 1992 by Alan Yau and is a pan-Asian style chain of restaurant's. The first opening in Bloomsbury London. The word Wagamama is Japanese and means childish or selfish. The core demographic for the chain is 25-35 year old professionals. Its ethos is fresh nutritious and light food in a contemporary environment. Interestingly the orders are relayed to the kitchen via PDAs and the company slogan Positive eating + Positive living.

I am required to produce an end sting

(the short clip at the end of an advert) for the Wagamama

chain of restaurant's. As part of my research i took

a trip to their restaurant in Spinningfields Manchester

to sample the Wagamama way. I needed to find out

what made them tick and how i should go about producing

an end sting appropriate to them they are very proud of their

logo and i would like to direct my efforts towards this ethos.

Here are some pictures of the restaurant.

I spoke with one of the staff and they gave me a pack of various

products and the number of the marketing manager Ed Hughes

for Wagamama so i can research the company in more depth.

Here are the menus and various printed media.

I particularly like the images used on the front of the menu

and i would like to add some music with a Japanese flavour to

the end sting. This was a helpful visit and will inform my

thinking during the early part of the project. The simplicity

of the Wagamama way is how i aim to develop my ideas.

Here is the first examples of the story board that i have

been ask to produce. It is a birds eye view of a table in a

restaurant, people are represented by stars. And the table

cloth is removed to reveal the wagamama logo.

Eventually i had an idea through the repitition of the letter

"a". Dont know why but it came to me in the end. Abracadabra

a waga moment and i hope it pleases Guy as he was adament that

i would think of something eventually, i had my doubts.

Although this needs finalizing i hope this is my abracadabra

moment i feel its appropriate to the logo too. There could

be many ways of using this and it is a universal language.

I wanted to do an end sting that showed typography and,

if possible, stick to the logo.

Well back to the original idea as my abracadabra moment

was not thought of as being that good an idea but i'm happy

enough to back track and look at the idea i had last week. This

involved using the a's in wagamama to suggest an arrr moment.

I do like the fact it is totally typographic and only uses the letters

and the star that appear in the logo. Here is my storyboard that

i have started to develop my final piece from.

Not to sure if the chop sticks are that important and have

not finalised if they should be included. I have made some

progress today with the project which was becoming a

concern to me.

Having decided not to use the chop sticks this has helped

me focus on using the logo only which is great progress as its

really the idea i had firstly that i have eventually returned to.

I wanted to add a sound track and came across one that i

have used as i found it appropriate with out losing the subtly

that i have been trying to evolve throughout this project.

I have produced this as my story board for my final piece.

There are two versions that i have included as

the difference is in that application of the sound

track and we were encouraged not to rely on

one finished piece.

Alan Fletcher gallery visit

Alan Fletcher 50 years of graphic work (and play).

I visited the Cube gallery in Manchester to see this

exhibition and i was surprised by the shear volume

of work that Fletcher has produced. He is a founding

member of D&AD and one of this countries fathers

of modern graphic design. I have catalogued his

work photographically and here are some of my

examples of the photomontages that i have produced

from the visit.

The examples above show the wide range of work covered

by Fletcher earlier in his career Working with Crosby, Forbes

and Gill. You can clearly see the range of styles used here

from pastiche and parody through to bold playful type.

!n 1972 in collaboration with five other designers the iconic

Pentagram was formed from Fletcher stumbling across it

in a witchcraft book and the five pointed shape symbolised

their collaboration. They had a multi disciplinary approach

one that was to prove very successful and is very much apart

of today's design world.

Here are many examples of the variety of work Fletcher

has produced since the early 1960's

Some examples of one major client Pirelli.

Optimist/pessimist is a theme he used and here are

some examples he produced using found ephemera.

The use of collage in the following sequence reminds me of

the dadaists of the early 1920's.

His visual curiosity has evolved with him since his education

in the 1950's as his themes have developed through the

passing years.

Although it was not possible in the time space to document

all of Fletcher's work i have shown examples mainly of the

work that appeals to me. I must add that his enthuisiasm

for his profession was undoubtable thoroughly enjoyable

to view his ability to relate graphic design to real life is

unquestionable.