MCCARTHY CONTRACTING

McCarthy Contracting is a new business and primarily manages entire exterior and interior build-outs for restaurants and retail spaces. Chief Operating Manager Rob McCarthy’s company will build additional Pupatella restaurant locations. Pupatella is one of the top ten pizza restaurants in America chosen by USA today and the NBC Today Show.

KEY EXPERTISE: Brand Identity and design, strategic and conceptual design

Branding Package & Design

I designed this project's logo, letterhead, and business card designs. I created multiple logos, letterhead, and business card options to bring the client's ideas to life. I conducted extensive industry research to choose colors and typography that would stand out in the contracting industry. I also created a brand guidebook for the client for all external communications. This project is the first of more to come.

A Look Inside the Brand Book

The McCarthy Contracting Brand Guide is meant to be used as a playbook for all external communications. The guide ensures that brand materials are presented with the same design, tone, and feel. Maintaining the use of branded logos, colors, fonts, on all materials will create greater brand awareness. The guidelines in the book should be used for all materials shared externally.

Logo Design

The critical element in the visual communication of a brand is the logo. The McCarthy Contracting logo design process involved the creation of six options to develop the primary concept. The wordmark integrated the brand initials, "MC," and the model evolved to include the initials and the full business name, "McCarthy Contracting." I worked to create confident and sharp logo designs to connect to the brand narrative. McCarthy Contracting is bold yet minimalist and appeals to large corporations and individuals. The logo needed to communicate an air of approachability and innovation.

The concept evolved as I researched typography, focusing on several fonts' structures and proportions. After I chose the header font, "Lemon Milk," I worked on color variations of the logos. The graphic elements enhanced the brand identity and narrative through gradients and symmetrical layout. The brand guideline book defines the logo use guidelines. The parameters are meant to enable consistent usage, which will help the logo build equity and recognition over time.

Brand Colors & Typography

The primary brand color is Rich Electric Blue and is complemented by the secondary color Yale Blue. The consistent use of a specific color palette is another essential part of brand recognition. The primary color is primarily used for header copy or as the background when working with white and secondary color text. The secondary blue and grey colors complement the primary colors when additional color variation is required. Additionally, the blue gradient composed of the primary and secondary blue colors will be used frequently.

The primary header and logo font is Lemon Milk. All copy at the top of a page will be in the Lemon Milk font family. The font weights medium and regular are the primary font weights. The secondary font is Mont. This font is used for all copy that exists within the body of any one-pager, PowerPoint, flyer, social media graphic, and more. All Mont font weights can be used.