Design Work Life: Cataloging Inspiration Daily

Like I’ve said before, Duffy & Partners con­sis­tently pro­duces great work. So I was excited to learn yes­ter­day that they recently com­pleted an iden­tity project for a new restau­rant (an area of design I’m par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in).

Tall Tales-Real Food restau­rant is a part of Gander Mountain, “the nation’s largest retail net­work of stores for fish­ing, hunt­ing, out­door lifestyle, camp­ing, and marine apparel, prod­ucts and ser­vices”. The in-store restau­rants were cre­ated with the goal of attract­ing more women and increas­ing shop­ping time in mind. Duffy par­tic­i­pated in all aspects of the brand­ing process begin­ning with nam­ing the restaurant.

From the press release:

Duffy explains how his firm and Gander Mountain cre­ated the restau­rant name, Tall Tales – Real Food, to fur­ther sup­port the over­all expe­ri­ence. “The name is cre­ative take on the tra­di­tion of the art of sto­ry­telling that accom­pa­nies many out­door sports such as fish­ing, hunt­ing and camp­ing,” said Duffy. “The tagline, ‘Real Food’, serves as a coun­ter­point and is the basis behind the menu — piz­zas, sal­ads and sand­wiches made with fresh ingre­di­ents, served in smart portions.”

Duffy & Partners cre­ated an iden­tity that deliv­ers a sense of dis­cov­ery and wit, through the thought­ful design of both neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive spaces. The envi­ron­ment tran­si­tions from the ener­getic retail feel of the Gander Mountain store to a mod­ern inter­pre­ta­tion of the American lodge, inspired by sim­ple ele­ments, art­fully designed — logs and tim­bers, dry stacked stone, leather uphol­stery and big dra­matic win­dows. The warmth of the open fire pizza oven invites guests to pull up a chair, draw a frosty mug, tell their tales and plan the pur­chases for upcom­ing escapades.

Like a week­end in the coun­try, the envi­ron­ment pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity to chill out, relax and get re-energized. Retailers are pulling out all the stops to attract shop­pers and their fam­i­lies and keep them in their stores longer. Welcome to the age of “retail-tainment.”

I haven’t found too much info online to sup­ple­ment the Duffy press release (a lit­tle bit here) and I only have these cou­ple of images so far. Looks like another really great piece of work from Duffy & Partners though. I’ll def­i­nitely update if I find any more.