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Keeping fast-casual soulful

Fast food got faster. Maybe too fast. Somewhere along the way, a little of the soul slipped off the plate.

The fast-casu­al world is more excit­ing, and more crowd­ed, than ever. The food’s fresh­er, the for­mats more flex­i­ble, the ser­vice faster. Walk out of the office in Lon­don and like most cities you’ve got oodles of noo­dles and buns on offer. But in a mar­ket where every­one promis­es con­ve­nience, the brands that win are the ones that offer char­ac­ter.

Peo­ple aren’t just look­ing for some­thing quick; they’re look­ing for some­thing they can feel. Authen­tic­i­ty, craft, the­atre. And not for­get­ting the small, human touch­es that turn a good meal into a mem­o­rable experience.

Waga­ma­ma

Reclaim­ing the edge
Waga­ma­ma was inno­vat­ing. The brand was lead­ing in diver­si­ty and men­tal health, expand­ing veg­an options, and grow­ing deliv­ery. Yet for all the progress, this now 27-year-old brand wasn’t stick­ing with a demand­ing younger audi­ence. Its per­son­al­i­ty had blurred; once effort­less­ly cool, it risked becom­ing every­thing, and noth­ing, to every­one. The brand had lost the clar­i­ty of its design point of view.

Waga­ma­ma asked us to help cre­ate a strong cam­paign iden­ti­ty that made the brand feel dis­tinc­tive again. We went back to the brand’s roots to cre­ate a brave, orig­i­nal and craft-led cam­paign. This was about refresh­ing Wagamama’s cre­ative soul and reclaim­ing its cul­tur­al relevance.

New wave veg­an: Mod­ern craft, orig­i­nal soul
Once effort­less­ly cool, Waga­ma­ma had lost the clar­i­ty of its design point of view and was in dan­ger of becom­ing every­thing, and noth­ing, to everyone.

The New Wave Veg­an cam­paign was about reclaim­ing that edge. We went back to the brand’s DNA: Japan­ese craft, dis­ci­pline and sim­plic­i­ty. Then rein­ter­pret­ed them through a mod­ern, expres­sive lens. The result cel­e­brat­ed inno­va­tion with­out los­ing authen­tic­i­ty. It was a con­fi­dent step for­ward, ground­ed in what made Waga­ma­ma dis­tinc­tive from the start.

We cre­at­ed a strong typo­graph­ic voice for Veg­an­uary, set­ting a mod­ern font in a tra­di­tion­al ver­ti­cal way to express the brand’s new con­fi­dence and clar­i­ty. Craft was deliv­ered in a col­lab­o­rat­ed with award-win­ning Japan­ese illus­tra­tor Yuko Shimizu, whose work fus­es tra­di­tion­al her­itage with con­tem­po­rary ener­gy, to reimag­ine The Great Kana­gawa Wave for a new gen­er­a­tion of diners.

Super-share­able moments
We knew audi­ences want­ed more than dish­es. They want­ed expe­ri­ences.

So we built one. Din­ers were invit­ed to fold an origa­mi boat, post it online, and share the spir­it of the cam­paign. It was play­ful, tac­tile and unique­ly Waga­ma­ma. It’s a reminder that food, like art, is bet­ter when shared.

Turn a meal into a moment.

In the Share and Repair cam­paign for Wagamama’s men­tal health part­ner­ship, we used the Japan­ese art of Kintsu­gi, mend­ing bro­ken pot­tery with gold, as a pow­er­ful visu­al metaphor. Once again, we com­bined bold design with gen­uine craft, blend­ing cul­tur­al truth with emo­tion­al res­o­nance.

The take­away

The best fast-casu­al brands are effi­cient and expres­sive. They stand for some­thing that can’t be copied: the emo­tion in their craft, the care in their sto­ry, the char­ac­ter in their expe­ri­ence. Because when fresh­ness and speed become expect­ed, feel­ing and expe­ri­ence becomes the differentiator.

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