Rollplay

Rollplay Viet Street Food

Client: Happy Endings Hospitality
Design Agency: Vigor Branding
Creative Director: Aaron Tovi
Brand Strategist: Aaron Tovi, Joseph Szala
Design Lead: Ellie Varicak

With restaurant brands like Chasin Tails, Leid, and Teas n’ You, Rollplay was another tongue-in-cheek concept brought to us by Happy Endings Hospitality Group. Rollplay came with an initial goal to disrupt the current Viet-merican restaurant scene by introducing unique takes on classic staples, and breaking away from the cliché Vietnamese brand concepts that we are accustomed to experiencing in Western culture. While their name was starting to put them in a different space, their existing visual identity was misaligned with this original and cheeky brand that they were striving to be. The new look for Rollplay is an energetic, cultural mashup that is intentionally low-brow, unrestrained, and accurately reflects the brand’s traits of being street, inventive, and brash— all while bringing a bit of playfulness and humor to their patrons with witty, yet tasteful, messaging. 

While designing Rollplay’s visual identity system, we were constantly challenging ourselves to make sure the brand didn’t go too corporate, and didn’t follow traditional branding rules, such as maintaining strict color palettes or logo application. The brand archetype is artistic, and therefore the brand’s projection should be equally expressive and nonconforming. The menu design for Rollplay strays from the brand colors with neon flyer paper, and carries the street feel with layered illustrations and photocopy texture.

Slightly-askew color blocks give the takeout bags a spontaneous “mis-print” look, while the Rollplay logo is chaotically repeated as a background visual element— taking on a new purpose outside of just being a logo.

Grafiitti-like illustrations cover the Rollplay brand collateral, pulling in cultural themes,  cheeky notes, and flavor cues.