Alinea Restaurant
Redefining Brand Image to Match Values
Business Model
Food & Hospitality
BRAND STRATEGY
Research & Insights
Purpose & Vision
Brand Story
Brand Positioning
Personality & Messaging
BRAND DESIGN
Logo
Visual Identity
NOMENCLATURE
TONE OF VOICE
ART DIRECTION
Look & Feel
Image Editing & Retouching
DIGITAL
Website
Mobile UI
Business Cards
Letterheads
Notebook
Cookbook
Signage
Cutlery
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ABOUT THE COMPANY
Alinea is not a restaurant...at least, not in a conventional sense.
Alinea is a restaurant where the dining experience is not only delicious, but also fun, emotional, and provocative. Alinea has been universally praised for its innovative approach to modernist cuisine.
It has three times been named the Best Restaurant in America and is the only restaurant in Chicago, & one of only 12 in the U.S., to earn the coveted Michelin 3-Star rating. It has also won the James Beard Award for Best Service in the United States.
Attaining so many awards we did not feel the visual identity of the brand represented the level of innovation and creativity of the cuisine and the experience itself.
CHALLENGES & GOALS
Alinea, renowned for its innovation and fresh ideas, faced a notable irony: its brand identity had remained stagnant for years. As a leading name in fine dining, it required a rebrand that would showcase its cutting-edge culinary creativity while reinforcing its position as the world’s top restaurant. If they didn’t change outwardly, it could seem they were being left behind as new competitors emerged to challenge them. The challenge was to modernise the identity without losing its core essence.
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UNIQUE SOLUTIONS
We took a conceptual approach by expanding the idea behind the name of the brand —“Alinea” which means, the beginning of a new train of thought — and applying this in a visual format by exploration of colours, shapes and materials.
Breaking Bounderies
Alinea has been pioneering the experience of eating through theatrical elements that engage the senses and resonate emotionally with the guests. An example as explained by chef and founder, Grant Achatz:
"Why constrict ourselves to presenting food on a plate, when we can literally plate the entire course on the table surface, this breaks the boundaries of the plate size... now we can scale it...we can make it huge...we can make people dig into it in a way it is not possible if you put food on a plate."
Conceptualisation
Original Concept
Alinea means the beginning of a new train of thought.
Alinea ("off the line" in Latin), also called the pilcrow (¶), is used to designate a new paragraph in one long piece of copy.
As innovation and new ideas are at the heart of Alinea restaurant, this proofreading mark, that represents a new idea, was chosen as an apt symbol to use for both its brand mark and brand name.
However, we at Muneebah Studio, felt this concept could be developed much further…
Concept Expanded
By pioneering and innovating in the realm of gastronomic cuisine, we felt that volcanic eruptions were the perfect metaphor and captured this concept well.
When volcanoes violently erupt, there is a spectacular visual display of bursting molten lava. This was akin to creative chefs exploding with new ideas. And then the lava cools to create new earth and landmass... As do the chef's ideas, forging new landscapes in the culinary realm.
And so the tagline was born, Alinea; forging a new landscape in the culinary experience.
Logo Anatomy
Identity Anatomy
Expressive Strokes
By painting with coulis on the dinning surface, (which doubles as the canvas), this expressive style captures the movement and creativity of the culinary artist; it is as much visual as appetising.
We wanted to utilise these gestures in the brand identity and created the following graphical devices:
Messaging
