The competition

I always check out the competition when im creating something, this way you can see what other people are doing and do it better... a very cheeky way of doing it but it happens all the time. Im going to look at other sushi restaurants in Amsterdam so i can see the competition and how they (if they) relate it to the city.
*Update*
I wrote the text above then started research on the sushi restaurants and could not find one that had anything relating it to amsterdam and i dont want to start researching other sushi restaurants styles as there is no need to, and so this post is pretty useless but im going to put what i did just so you can see my research on this.


Amsterdam sushi restaurants:

• Tomo Sushi
• Eetcafé Sushi V.O.F.Address:
• Sushi Sakura
• Sushi KingsAddress:
• Sushi Time
• Shinto Sushi
• Sushi One
• Sugoi-SushiAddress:
• Zento Sushi-Bar
• Ichiban Sushi 

Source: Google maps, searched "sushi restaurants amsterdam"
That list is just page 1 of 4, there is no need to put them all as it doesnt help with research but i looked at most of the list (by looked i mean i looked at their site to find images of the restaurant in Amsterdam and i also used Google) and there was nothing to report on but at least i know there is a lot of competition there.


Oh well..

Facts And Figures

A few facts and figures on Amsterdam.

• Amsterdam became a metropolis since the second half of the sixteenth century.  
• 37% of the population belong to an ethnic minority.
• Inhabitants: 747,290
• Inhabitants in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area: 2,158,592
• Nationalities: 175
• Mayor: 1
• Bicycles: 600,000 
• Trees: 220,000
• Flower bulb in parks and public gardens: 600,000
• Parks: 28
• Trams: 232
• Ferries: 9
• Markets: 21
• Diamond polishing factories: 24
• Canals: 165 
• Bridges: 1,281
• Wooden drawbridges: 8
• Houseboats: 2,500 
• 16th, 17th and 18th century buildings: 6,800 
• Royal Palace: 1
• Statues and sculptures: 302
• Windmills: 8
• Museums: 51
• Art galleries: 141
• Paintings by Van Gogh: 206
• Concerts and theatrical performances per year: 16,000
• Concerts and theatrical performances per day: 40
•  Cafés and bars: 1,215 

Source: http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/visiting/touristinformation/aboutamsterdam/factsandfigures (fantastic site)
I copied what i thought was interesting and its amazing how much you dont know something until you do your research. Notice how my word association (done before any research) doesnt show half of what amsterdam is about, 600,000 bicycles! i knew it was a very eco-friendly place but that is a lot and its a great thing, 37% of the population are of ethnic minority which shows the huge diverse culture they have and how they live along side each other. Over 200 trams in the city, over 1000! bridges... i think i may have to include a bridge in my mural as thats a lot of bridges, there is many old building and statues which shows its a very proud city and keeps its heritage. Amsterdam has a high art love with 141 galleries and 51 musuems which fills me with confidence if i choose to go far a unusual style, this information is so useful and when i come to development ill be coming back to this post.

About Amsterdam

In my opinion if you want to get to know someone/something its always best to start with their history.

Instead of writing an essay type of writing im just going to bullet point key info so it will be much easier to come back to
Im just copy and pasting info but i see it as just transferring information into a better place however im still going to analyze my findings.

"In world history Amsterdam, Netherlands has always been a well-known name. It is considered throughout the world as the greatest planned city of northern Europe. It is highly acclaimed for its rich heritage. Amsterdam was considered the center of world economy in the 17^th century. Now the city of Amsterdam, Netherlands is acclaimed for its tolerant character."
"The greatest planned city of Amsterdam, Netherlands was first founded as a fishing village around the thirteenth century. It developed round a dam on the Amstel River at the end of the 12^th century. The name Amstelledamme occurs for the first time in October 27, 1275 when the toll concession of Floris V."

Floris V of Holland

"The Golden Age of Amsterdam, Netherlands starts from the period 1585 and ends in 1672. This period was said to be the hey-day of the city’s commercial success.... It is also during this time that a number of today’s historic buildings were built, like the town hall in the Dam Square, which is known today as the Royal Palace."

 Royal Palace

"In 1795 the government of the patrician oligarchies was overthrown from power. That caused the old Republic to cease to exist. Shortly afterward the French started to occupy the country. It was during the period 1795 to 1813 that Amsterdam, Netherlands suffered badly from the economic recession... 1813 to 1940 in the city of Amsterdam, Netherlands marked a period of economic recovery."
Source: http://travellistics.com/europe/amsterdam/history-of-amsterdam-netherlands/

I will start from the top of the info i have taken and work my way to the bottom.
Amsterdam is the greatest planned city in northern europe... i dont know why but i will look at the map and see if it can be seen.

The city has very easy streets and i can see the reason for the acknowledgment, the picture shows this great planned city.
Amsterdam was at the heart of the worlds economy in 17th century and this is properly the reason for its rich and proud heritage as at one time it was "the city", the old buildings that still stand and fill the city are a reminder of this. Found as fishing village - personally i think that this can be used as part as my mural but it says a lot about the people and how proud they are of their history, the extract also tells the rise and fall of Amsterdam, the city is now recuperating and getting back up to its prime even though its still from the title of the heart of the world economy. The story of this city is amazing, the rise and fall give the city character.

How i tick

I was looking at blogs of other in my class and they seemed much more personal than mine and i thought why is that? So i thought id just put this up, it shows how i tick, i like to know what im going todo because i have learned in past experiences if you don't you WILL forget stuff. This is just my piece of paper that gets me started and this is a repeated thing on each new brief.

Enjoy my little personal touch....

p.s. i dont like thinking too far ahead as then you'll forget what your doing next so thats the reason its not much, i will create a new one once these are all ticked off.

Amsterdam

What is Amsterdam?
Word association

• Hotels
• Anne Frank house
• Magere Brug
• Dam Square
• Rijksmusuem
• Van Gogh musuem
• Canal
• Architecture
• Bicycles
• Small streets
• Red light district
• Window shopping (Hookers)
• Marijuana
• Cafes
• City of diamonds
• NEMO (science centre)
• Stedelijk Museum
• Culture
• Art
• Boats
• Water
• Sex
• Drugs
• Music
• City built around water

When i personally think of Amsterdam i confronted with 2 different thoughts; on one side i have the thought of unique art and architecture styles, images of the canals,small streets and houses built around water, friendly people and then the other thought is of the marijuana cafes and the late night district but i want to know more about the city and not judge it as a stereotype.

What City?

Ok so i think i got the jist of the YO! Sushi franchise so now im going to decide on what city im going to have the new restaurant open in.
Thoughts straight away:

• Amsterdam
• New York
• Sydney
• Tokyo

Break it down and Amsterdam looks great, fantastic scenery, a unique city full of wonders of good and bad. New york is too obvious, Sydney would be interesting and Tokyo is a no even though it has potential i'm just not really feeling it.
This decision is a big one, i will have to research the chosen city and then create a mural on the city that will represent that city... A lot is about the city.

My choice is Amsterdam.
Why?
Amsterdam as a city is different to any other city, the city is famous for things illegal in most/all other cites and therefor i can create images/illustrations that would be frowned upon in other cities. Apart from the underground culture of the red light district and marijuana you have the beauty of the architecture, the canals that go through the city. A modern city with lots of nature and this gives me even more to think about when designing.

Images of this beautiful city:

Images of the cities unique attraction:

After deciding and writing this post my lecturer gave me an idea on Amsterdam and how it is two different cities, the beautiful peaceful city in the day and then the red light district at night, I found this fascinating and i could base my design around that idea.

Parent Company

YO! is the parent company of YO! Sushi, the sushi part is the subtitle saying what type of the company it is.

As you can see the logo uses the same fonts as the YO! Sushi.

What is YO!?
"YO! Co is the wholly owned holding company of Simon Woodroffe that works with others to develop and seed finance YO! ideas and new YO! brands. YO! Co owns equity stakes and collects royalties from its endeavours." Source: http://www.yocompany.biz/
There is a quote from the owner on the site but that has no relevance to my brief.
"Simon Woodroffe believes that the holy grail of retail today is to constantly and never endingly innovate in order to deliver high luxury without the high cost." Same Source.
This extract from the YO! website is a great thing to have as its the owners view on their own brand, what they want their brand to be - Luxury without the cost and i will remember this throughout my project. Im going to make it bold and big to remember it. 

YO! has multiple comanies all in different markets:

• YO! Sushi - Restaurant
• YOTEL - 3 YOTELS open in New York 2011
• YO! Japan - Japanese inspired clothes
• RadiYO! - Radio
• YO!How+Simon Woodroffe - the YO! team has learnt from both his successes and failures.. (not too sure about this one)
• YO!Zone - Health + Fitness
• YO!Home - Homes/apartments
• YO!Everything - An Idea

The Company seems to be upcoming with a lot of ideas, the website doesnt explain much about each division of the company but its obvious YO! Sushi is the most popular.

The YO! Brand is ran by 4 people:

• Simon Woodroffe
• Robin Rowland
• Gerard Greene
• Nick Tardent   

Simon Woodroffe was the creator of YO! Sushi, creating it with his own funds and the first restaurant opened 22 January 1997. The people in descending order in the list then joined the YO! Franchise.

How To YO!

This is something that separates this restaurant from the rest - you don't know how to eat there. When you see the restaurant and the conveyor belt full of food you ask yourself "how do you pick and pay for your food?" and YO! Sushi have thought about that in advance and provided instructions on their website. For me to really understand this brand i need to know how to YO!

Image taken off the YO! Sushi Website.

 

No need for me to write how to YO! as its all on the image above but basically you get what you want and they add it up at the end and each coloured dish means a different price. Pretty simple.

Reason for restart

Being a blogging newbie i started this brief not realizing how confusing it may get if your not organized, the problem i was having is that i had random posts about different parts of the brief next to each other rather than all together. I started to think how to get passed this and wrote down a sort of development cycle which i told me what to research rather than just doing it spontaneously, lesson learned from this blogging experience - BE ORGANIZED!

What is YO! Sushi Part II

In past briefs i have done this technique, i put the company name into Google images and find few images that represent the company. A picture says a thousand words and so im going to show images shown in my search.

From these 4 images you can start to get the picture of what YO! Sushi is and the style it goes for. The top image shows the size and unusual layout of the restaurant - fun and exciting, the second image feels like you enter this restaurant like you enter a new world - "a slice of urban Tokyo", the 3rd image shows the clean, friendly nature of the restaurant and the final image shows the fresh quality foods produced. Overall this restaurant is bright, clean, friendly, happy, new, exciting, enjoyable, unique experience, fresh and original. I will come back to these points later on and i may go into more detail later on.

Where is YO! Sushi?

"You can find YO! all throughout the United Kingdom, as well as in Ireland, Russia and the Middle East." Source: http://www.yosushi.com/restaurants
YO! Sushi has not spread across the world and is yet to hit its food origin country but it is slowly growing, the company has spread right across the UK with the most restaurant being located within the United Kingdom.

Locations in United Kingdom:

• Aberdeen
  Union Square
• Bath
  Milsom Place Bath
• Birmingham
  Selfridges
• Brighton
  Brighton
• Bristol
  Cabot Circus
  Cribbs Causeway
• Cardiff
  St David's
• Croydon
  House of Fraser
• Edinburgh
  Harvey Nichols Edinburgh
• Essex
  Lakeside

• Gateshead
  MetroCentre
• Glasgow
  House Of Fraser
  Silverburn
• High Wycombe
  Eden High Wycombe
• Kent
  Bluewater
• Leeds
  Harvey Nichols
• Leicester
  Highcross
• Liverpool
  Liverpool ONE

• London
  Brent Cross
  Brompton Road
  County Hall
  Farringdon
  Finchley Road
  Fulham Broadway
  Harvey Nichols
  Haymarket
  Heathrow T3
  Islington
  Market Place
  Paddington Station
  Poland Street
  Royal Festival Hall
  Russell Square
  Sedley Place
  Selfridges
  St Pancras
  St Pauls
  Trocadero
  Victoria Station
  Westfield White City
  Whiteleys
• Manchester
  Selfridges Manchester Exchange Square
  Selfridges Trafford Centre

• Milton Keynes
  Milton Keynes
• Newcastle
  Fenwick
• Nottingham
  Nottingham
• Oxford
  Oxford
• Portsmouth
  Gunwharf Quays
• Reading
  House of Fraser
• Sheffield
  Meadowhall
• Southampton
  WestQuay Southampton

International:

• Ireland
  Dublin
  
  • Clarendon Street
    Dundrum

• Russia
  Moscow
  
  • Mega Belaya Dacha
    Metropolis

• United Arab Emirates
  Dubai
  
  • Burjuman Centre
    DIFC
    Dubai Mall
    Festival City
    Marina Mall
    Mirdiff City Centre

• Bahrain
  Bahrain
  
  • Bahrain

• Kuwait
  Kuwait
  
  • Kuwait 360

I'm surprised at the international locations as i would have thought that it would be more popular places such as; Rome, Madrid, Paris. The restaurants open in Russia and Kuwait seem an odd place to expand but i would like to look into that more and see what the restaurant looks like in each of these unusual countries. YO! Sushi has taken the UK by storm so i cannot see any reason for it not being able to hit Europe or the US.

What is YO! Sushi?

Information on YO! Sushi:

Source: Wikipedia

• YO! Sushi is a British restaurant chain which was started in 1997 and is owned by Quilvest (lead investor) and the YO! Sushi Senior Management team. 
• YO! Sushi specializes in delivering sushi to customers using the Japanese style conveyor belt method.
• Cooked foods are prepared in a kitchen in plain view of customer. 
• In order to indicate freshness, a label is applied to the lid of the dish to when the dish must be consumed by.
• The restaurants are mostly based in the United Kingdom with the majority in London. Restaurants have also been opened in the Middle East in Dubai, Bahrain and Kuwait, with others in other countries such as Russia and Ireland.
• The company's headquarters is located on Farringdon Road, London, UK.

Source: Yo! Sushi Official website

•  The original and most famous sushi brand in the UK. 
•  Our customers queued around the block as we gave the capital a slice of Urban Tokyo.
•  The experience was fun and exciting, whilst the food was revolutionary and made lovingly.
•  By 2001 supermarkets started selling packaged sushi to the Great British Public. 
•  Takeaway or delivery 
• 80 Japanese inspired items, including delicious soups, rice or noodle-based dishes, salads, tempura and even hot classics like Chicken Katsu Curry, Salmon Teriyaki or Yakisoba noodles (some of our best sellers).
• For the past 11 years YO! Sushi has been led by our CEO, Robin Rowland and with the help of our leadership team .
• London-only sushi brand to an international iconic success with over 60 restaurants worldwide. 
• We serve over 3.5 million customers a year throughout the UK and across the globe in Moscow, Dublin, Dubai, and Kuwait … phew, now that’s a lot of maki rolling!

________________________________________________________________________________________________

To understand this design brief fully I want to know more about the company I will be designing for. I have taken information from 2 sources about YO! Sushi (see above), I have cut the full information down to the key parts so that I can locate their key factors better.

From doing this research on the company I have found out that YO! Sushi was created back in 1997 in London, the company prides its self on the fresh food it has. The fresh food is a selling factor of this company, the food is cooked and prepared in plain view so that customers can see that the food is fresh, the food is prepared, cooked and then put out with a expiry date label. The label of reinsurance to the customer that what they are eating is fresh as this type of food seems alien to most people. According to the source customers were queuing around the block to get to their sushi or as the source puts it “slice of urban Tokyo” it goes on to say that the experience is fun, exciting and the food is revolutionary. This company has found a gap in the market and has exploited very well, they use originality to attract customers and offer a pleasant experience when eating due to you seeing and eating fresh food. The company in its 13 year life span has now got 60 stores worldwide and serves 3.5 million customers per year. When designing I feel the design has to be friendly and happy, the design must not confuse people as people often get scared of stuff they don’t understand and the way this company has marketed this foreign food is a great example.

The Brief

The brief in the simplest form is to illustrate a mural for a YO! Sushi restaurant in a city of my choice. The mural has to represent the city e.g. London - Big Ben, NYC - Statue of Liberty.

I have to create a logo for my chosen city and i have to use the original logo, so the new logo would be the original logo then the city name after it.

A direct mail pack to promote the opening.

A branded menu (food or wine) Not really looking forward to this one..

Wine/Beer label

I can do further developments such as; take-away branded box, stationary, letterhead, business card and Vehicle livery.

The brief seems fairly open and has a lot of potential. We have to produce or research and development in blog form, something i have not done before therefor i feel this will be a pleasant new experience.