Bold. Simple. Retro. They all describe the King of burgers’ new rebranding look, the first in 20 years, by creative agency Jones Knowles Ritchie.

The rebrand serves up a complete new visual identity right across the fast food brand’s packaging, menu design, merchandise, décor and social media with elements focused on replicating the shapes of BK’s menu items.

Mouthwatering, big and bold.

Burger King describes its new designs as ‘mouthwatering, big and bold, playfully irreverent and proudly true’. Like its pre-1999 logo design, the new logo has the Burger King name once again sandwiched between the two halves of the burger bun.

The big difference with this new design is the introduction of a plumply juicy new typeface – called Flame – that you could almost bite into, in colours that are ‘rich and bold’. Apparently the font is inspired by the shapes of the brand’s food in being ‘rounded, bold and yummy’.

A logo evolution.

JKR executive creative director Lisa Smith said, “The new minimalist logo seamlessly meets the brand evolution of the times”. In fact inspiration for the typeface came from looking into Burger King’s archives.

“Over the years the brand often used typefaces like Cooper Black,” she said. “We wanted to do a modern take on those kinds of type, making it digital-friendly for the future.”

The striking simplicity of the new logo’s flat design, block colours and bold shapes works well across all platforms, including digitally.

Inspired by burgers.

While these combine to give the new look a decidedly retro feel, they were inspired by the food itself and Burger King’s trademark flame-grilling process: Firey Red, Flaming Orange and Barbeque Brown.

Burger King’s redesigned packaging also features ‘playful illustrations of ingredients’ emblazoned with adjectives that describe the food, like ‘crispy’ and ‘tasty’.

The rebrand uses the warm colours and pictures of ingredients to redesign uniforms for staff with a deep brown as their base colour. This  is paired with the new logo and trim in red, orange and white.

Merchandising, menu boards, restaurant signage and marketing assets will also include the font and revised colour palette.

As part of a design trend towards simplicity and fun that communicates more readily across a wide range of digital and printed media, Burger King’s new rebranding scores pretty high. Expect to see more of the same from other brands.

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