Trinh says the Made in Chinatown merchandise, in which the various merch lines they develop with restaurants are sold on a centralized platform, helps restaurants without an established web presence have some control over their image online.
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While trends like e-commerce and digital communication were in full swing within the restaurant industry pre-pandemic, the crisis has undoubtedly pushed it further. The money raised went to Stacey Abram’s Fair Fight Action and the promotional design was done, coincidentally, by Harry Trinh.ĭuring a year of social distancing, the act of reaching anyone has more often than not been mediated through technology.
#Chinatown showoff series#
To date, they’ve put on 61 classes that raised over $158,000 in donations, and over the summer, they partnered with NYC restaurant King to put on a series of courses called Cooking for Equity: Asian Chefs for Black Lives. At the start of the pandemic, Bost co-founded, along with Betty Liao, Sarah Schenkkan, and Frank Harris the initiative Kitchen Rodeo, which provides a platform for chef-hosted digital cooking classes where the proceeds going to an organization of the host’s choice (or the host’s own restaurant/staff, if they so choose). “I think that’s something that we will continue to see evolve and see the space build tools around,” she says. Bost, who works as a product designer at Netflix, says that she’s also been seeing more chefs communicating directly with their community through websites, social media, newsletters, and platforms like Patreon. When I speak with Kim Bost, she adds to that sentiment, noting that platform design is another area where designers can be helpful. “A restaurant group may have been doing this, but definitely less so an independent chef, who might not have had taken the time, without an in house marketing team” she says. But strategy-wise, what she’s long advised has just become more true than ever: restaurants need to be able to tell their own narrative very clearly, using their own channels purposefully to speak directly to their community. She says she’s been designing more packaging and wine labels for clients, taking the opportunity to push more sustainable materials, more digital communication, and more thoughtful storytelling on labels. I was interested in talking to her about how her services have changed since the pandemic began. Polonsky is the design resource for many of New York City’s (and some elsewhere) independent restaurants she founded Polonsky & Friends with the intent of working with “mission-driven” restaurants for whom food is a way to foster community and change. “As everything was falling apart and brick and mortar was being threatened, I think graphics was the number one need as a lot of restaurants pivoted to doing products,” says Anna Polonsky of design consultancy Polonsky & Friends. Drawing inspiration from 20th-century Chinese apothecary packaging that has “an old world, almost Edwardian kind of feel to it,” as well as Chinese religious imagery and Imperial architecture, the visual identity uses a thin, yellow-gold frame embellished with Chinese traditional coins and architectural flourishes to outline the logo, as well as images and Instagram cards.
The branding, designed by the organization’s head of creative Harry Trinh, does this beautifully. A large part of its mission is to “amplify” the voices of Chinatown’s businesses and project a truer image of the neighborhood to those who may think of it only as a destination for trinkets and cheap food. One of the things I find so impressive about the organization is the nimbleness with which it can respond to what its community needs it’s kind of like an unofficial, mutual aid-version of a Chamber of Commerce. Since March, Welcome to Chinatown has raised $1 million to put towards cash infusions, food donation, census outreach, and merchandise lines for local businesses.
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