Today we get to share one of our most gratifying projects from 2014, recently launched website for Jewish Food Hero, an online resource for purchasable, plant-based menus for the Jewish holidays. Not only are we thrilled with the outcome of the design, we’re grateful to have met and worked with founder Kenden Alfond, whose passion for plant-based food and healthy living served as inspiration to us (and even influenced our own 3-week eating challenge during the process).

When Kenden first approached us, we were not sure how the challenge she put forth would be solved. Her concept had no online precedent, which first proved challenging (and later, liberating). Targeting Jewish mothers with too little time to create healthy holiday alternatives, our canvas was essentially blank, enabling us to create an identity free of cliches. After a lengthy branding session together, we identified 3 keys terms as our guideline — bright, white and light. Using these as a benchmark, we began to conceptualize, sketching out many different logo options and ultimately settling on a clean solution centred around the olive branch. This served as a perfect metaphor — a nod to Jewish culture, an extension to non-Jews alike, and a healthy symbol of plant-based food.

Continuing forward, we felt as thought the brand should be as pure as possible, enabling the planned photography a starring role. As such, we chose Minion as our typographic solution, a traditional font family with appeal in modern design (when given a delicate touch). We then created an abbreviated colour palette of mint, peach and grey to be used as accents throughout the Jewish Food Hero brand. Finally, we created a complimentary style of illustration based on the logo, developing a full slate of holiday icons to be used throughout future brand materials, including a free downloadable Jewish holiday calendar, available by subscribing to monthly e-newsletters.

Having developed what we considered a wonderful design solution, the brand hinged on whether or not we could attain the level of photography we were after — pure, fresh, and simple — which it turned out was a concern we need not have worried about. After providing several specific mood boards outlining photography style, angle, elements and composition, talented food photographers Deanna Linder and Danya Weiner of Matkonation took our vision and absolutely nailed the execution, allowing us a sigh of relief, and binding together an airtight brand presence that could be used consistently across multiple platforms.

Seriously though, how delicious do these dishes look? It was all we could do to stop ourselves from bolting from the computer straight to the kitchen for a little trial and error! But deadlines prevailed, and and our final task was at hand —  to create a web structure that would allow the audience an easy understanding of the Jewish Food Hero concept, and to allow quick, easy download of each delicious holiday menu. This would involve bridging an e-commerce solution with a WordPress CMS, applied to a hierarchal wireframe encouraging action-oriented usage. That’s fancy-speak for ‘it wasn’t always easy’. It fact it was incredibly complicated, with the website needing to be fluid for desktop use as well as compatible with mobile devices. Our ‘ingredients’ were in place, however, so once we identified the technical aspects it was a matter of applying the brand identity throughout. Working with a talented developer is more than half of the equation, which is why we were grateful to be partnered with developer Sarah Lewis of WP Moxie for the building and execution of the website in all it’s necessary forms.

The reasons why this was a gratifying project are almost endless. A great concept is the first step, but it requires a team to bring each phase to fruition, and our team was exceptional. Even more remarkable, we were spread out over 2 continents and 5 countries. Kenden from Jewish Food Hero (Cambodia), photographers Deanna and Dayna (Israel), developer Sarah (USA), Sarah’s assistant El (United Kingdom) and us, right here in the heart of Canada. We’re thankful to have had the opportunity to work together, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for Jewish Food Hero in 2015! – Tyler + Jessie