Restaurant by design: how Leon’s in-house team is using design to grow the brand
From its chocolate bar wrappers to its fascia signage, every aspect of design at health-focussed restaurant chain Leon is created by the company’s design team, which is well on its way to becoming an in-house agency. The Drum caught up with head of design Jo Ormiston to find out how design is helping to build the fast-growing brand.
Can you describe what your role entails?
Everything from menu boards, print, to the website, right up until fascia signage for the restaurant and interior graphics… we are very much in-house. From a brand perspective all the major decisions are made by John Vincent who is the founder and our new brand and marketing director Kirsty Saddler (who was previously head of strategy at BBH).
Strategical brand and design decisions come down to mainly us three and input from the operations team otherwise it doesn’t work even if it looks beautiful. Leon is a fast moving chain and for everyone that comes in and out we try to do 30 second transactions so to get that speed everything has to be bang on with design as well because otherwise it just holds everything up.
Do you think having an in-house team makes a difference when building a brand?
I think having everything in-house is key to telling the story properly. For us design is not just the finishing touches, it’s the core of the business. There is a strong brand perspective right from the beginning really, and that story telling aspect has always been really important.
We move so fast: so for a menu launch right up until we press print it is back and forth. John in particular has ideas every second and he likes to see those ideas come to life the next day. If we weren’t in-house we would miss those ideas and key moments where we figure out what needs to happen to make the business better.
As a growing business how does design help a brand like Leon?
It’s difficult because design is hard to measure apart from with sales so the best thing about clear menu boards is that it speeds sales and it speeds transactions. So in terms of a growing business it’s important to have that growing brand pinned down before you can grow because if it’s a bit rocky it can become distorted. You have to be really clear about what you get for the brand and what that design aspect is and what that role plays.
You recently announced that you will be opening up overseas, will the design feel the same?
Every restaurant is bespoke to the actual building itself and the area that it’s in. We try to make every restaurant feel like it’s the only one – that’s really important to us. In terms of that each one has a story behind it. At the moment [we have] family photos which originally started that it was just John and Henry and Allegra [co-founders and head chef’s] family photos from their holidays back from when they were young but we’ve grown so big now that we’ve had to spread our wings to include other team member’s family photos and people at the head office.
We just opened Hammersmith today that has Saskia who is our brand and marketing manager’s family photos because she grew up near Hammersmith. So every restaurant has that family mentality to it to make it a little more personal.
Does that help in competition? Do those experiences help Leon to stay ahead?
I think so. Right down to the name Leon it could be anybody, it happens to be John’s dad, but it’s a personality that the name itself gives to the brand. It doesn’t contain it, it’s open to anybody and anybody can come in here and feel at home no matter where they are and hopefully that will translate around the world and I think it will.
What is the biggest challenge heading up design?
The main challenge is the operational challenge and actually driving out those brilliant, crazy ideas and making it work operationally because you have to be able to train your team to create those abstract ideas and actually deliver it in the way you imaged. That is always the most difficult aspect of it being a creative for a chain like Leon.
In an agency you present your ideas and you do the best that you can and hope that the brand can continue to make it happen, but it’s difficult because you hand it over, it’s your baby for a long time and then you hope that the client makes the best of it. Here it’s up to you to drive those ideas and make them work and if they’re not working, push and help to be a bit more flexible. There has to be method to the magic and as creatives you have to be aware of what that method is before you can make the magic.