Bad Apple Mac’s Food Truck

Designer: Casie Bear
Location: United States
Project Type: Student Project
School: Ball State University
Professor: Ryan James
Packaging Contents: Burgers, Sandwiches, Salad, Soup, Drinks

This food truck project focuses on a restaurant in downtown Madison, IN called ‘Bad Apple Mac’s’, a family-friendly contemporary-Americana restaurant that serves comfort American food with a quirky twist. Known for their themed nights, their apple-themed signature cocktails and draft beer, and their crown jewel – a loaded bacon cheeseburger with their homemade mac n cheese all piled on top with a single apple garnish on top. The goal of this food truck project is to bring more customers towards BAM, update their current identity, and bringing the level of fun and unexpectedness to mobile wheels.

In order to revamp their identity while maintainig the same iconic shapes, color palette, and quirkiness – there had to be some alterations. While pink and green can be seen as rather jarring for how bright they are, the tones were shifted slightly so that the more cool-toned darker green worked with the now red-hued pink and off-white to envoke the natural ingredients they use, hunger, and added cleanliness. Rather than keeping a plain polkadot pattern, it was reconfigured to small lined graphics with shaded in polka dots that resembles screentone printing in American comics – a call back to their quirkiness and their Americana roots.

The logo was simplified from a plethora of elements. Now it has been simplified into a small workmark that creates the image of the iconic apple with the stem and leaf intact. Olivita Regular was used as a nod back to the slab-serif typeface the original logo used, keeping the Americana touch while the rounder edges promote a more approachable feel. The flatted word logo on the truck is also Olivita Regular with the same stem and leaf from the logo.

The truck is the statement piece of the project, it must capture potential customer’s interest. It uses pink and green with accents of white on the wrap. The pink is used as a background for the white graphics, logo, and QR code for the menu. The green is used more for the front of the truck as the sides and roof form an apple with a bite taken out of it, highlighted in off-white, to show BAM’s quirky personality regardless if the window is up or down while indirectly showing where to line up for food. This personality is also brought to the back of the truck with the statement: “Feelin’ Bad? Come down to Bad Apple Mac’s” To entice both people walking by and cars driving behind the food truck.

The food packaging is more subuded with off-white taking a major roll as pink and green are merely for accent, this is so the bright colors are used tastefully throughout the food packaging while letting the customer eat without being overwhelmed with its surroundings. The rest of the packaging uses the same graphics displayed in a polka dot manner – Pink being used for anything that contains meat while green represented the vegetarian options, this signals that BAM not only caters to vegetarianism but also gives a unique experience and may entice customers to come back and try more. Each package, except the drink cup, highlights a specific food on the box to help signal what the customer has such as a sandwich in solid color and not in line art. The sides of the packaging display fun identification for each item with a pattern of “Big Bad” and the item in question after it. The other a solid off-white logo and social media on every box. All of these packages use reinforced carboard, as a lot of these food items are either heavy and saucy or liquid in general – this will ensure structural integrity of the food inside while being environmentally aware.

Overall, the reimaging of BAM keeps their iconic color palette and items like their apples and polkadots while being innovative to a new crowd. The exterior and packagining matching the contemporary-Americana they serve with their food and showing their quirky and friendly environment with call backs to comic books, American wood type, and fun graphics. Feelin’ Bad? Why don’t you come down to Bad Apple Mac’s for a good time?