Honouring a legacy.
After being held annually for a decade, Taste of Manila has grown exponentially from its humble beginnings into one of the largest street festivals in Canada. Its played a role in uniting generations and celebrating Filipino heritage through all-day activities, booths and entertainment.
However, its visual identity has never fully reflected its importance for Filipino Canadians and its embodiment of Filipino traditional values.
Turning a new leaf.
Capturing the heart of hospitality and compassion for community in Filipino culture, the new visual identity abstracts the traditional communal dining practice of boodle fight or kamayan (hand) feasting.
Boodle fight or kamayan feasting
Practiced during celebrations, food is place freely on large banana leaves spread across a dining table to be eaten by communities with their hands.
Visual identity
The brand visuals are composed of mixed typography, patterned backgrounds, organic illustration, and vibrant colours.
These elements work together to capture the feelings of companionship from sharing without restraints found in boodle fight. Tagalog and English are both used, indistinguishable at a glance to represent the blend of both languages used among Filipinos.
Seamless pattern
The banana leaf background connects across multiples of the same asset, reinforcing the value of community and togetherness.
Suman Malagkit inspired fold
The program pamphlet is Inspired by the practice of wrapping food with banana leaves for cooking. The pamphlet folds to imitate the way it wraps around Suman Malagkit, a sticky rice cake.
Takeaways
Importance of audience input.
When I asked Filipinos which design spoke to them, they unanimously agreed on the final concept. It gave me the confidence to move forward and left no room for doubt!
Visual identities are contextual.
As my first visual identity project, instead of thinking solely about "What visually conveys Taste of Manila?" I learned to consider the what, when, where of the design to stand out in the Toronto landscape.
