Garden party in a box.

Because who doesn’t love a friendly gathering? It’s sunny, it’s instagrammable, it’s easy. It’s more than a meal. It’s a spread. Crowd pleasers on a cute cloth.

BoxBox is a health conscious, fast-casual concept that serves curated bento-style salads, snacks, and mixed bowls meant for sharing. And the brand needed to serve easy hangout vibes. Peace of cake. Or, bite of salad?

The dream team.

Tim and Laurie Martin exemplify why I love to work with small businesses. Because Boxbox is not just their business. It’s their sincere passion. It’s decades worth of dreaming and dedication, finally coming to realization.

As with many small-but-mighty teams making things happen, there were lots of ideas, investor decks, and details floating around in the clouds. I was happy to come in, put all the information together and bring it down to earth.

In box number one: strategy.

A clear direction was crucial. Yes, we were creating artistic boxes of feel-good, clean food. But we’re also opening a space that needs to take up space in the Denver market. And the concept was fast-casual familiar but with some shareworthy novelties.

Even though the food was mostly meant to be picked up and brought to the party, it was very important to Tim and Laurie that the physical space, too, felt lively and vibrant. Not a stale store covered in aluminum and brown paper bags. Not to name names.

Throughout the discovery and framework processes, we pinpointed where BoxBox could snag a competitive advantage, we narrowed in on their target audience, and served up the rest of the strategy side dishes that would come together for the complete brand.

Getting to the goods.

The strategy specifies three Actions — Functional, Experiential, and Emotional — that establish how BoxBox can closely connect with their audience.

From here, we explored different looks and design ideas to find the perfect fit for BoxBox.

The custom word mark illustrates what the brand does, and how they do it differently. In this case, with an expressive, human touch. Distinctive letterforms and custom shapes add the excitement of exploration and discovery to a modern box form.

A friendly tagline is paired with a friendly font, and fox with bold line illustrations. Together they decorate the design system with a fresh energy that says “come on in and experience something new.”

Last but not least, the Martins wanted color, color, color. And when clients say color, I say “how bright?”

Inspiration. From scratch.

So that’s the story of how we took the daring idea of one dynamic duo and packaged it into a box you want to bring home to your best friends. A completely blank page to a fully built, ready to execute brand.

The final, key phase of the project was to leave Tim and Laurie with ample inspiration. In-store, on-screens, on employees, on tables. An extensive range of branded mockups help inspire and envision how BoxBox becomes real.

And I get to watch their faces light up as their hard work and innovative vision materializes in living color. And that is something that simply can’t be put in a box.