Studio Brief 1 - KFC bucket design research

Research into KFC

• Founded in Kentucky, USA, KFC has been one of the world's leading competitors among popular fast-food restaurants, since 1930. It's iconic fried chicken has been known across the world, yet still to this day the recipe remains a secret. 

• Colonel Sanders is the founder of the company and has become an iconic, recognisable figure for the brand. His face is feature on the majority of KFC's product branding and advertisement. For example, the logo used on the packaging for the food shows the face of Colonel Sanders.
  

• When looking at the design for the brand, it is clear that throughout the different platforms and avenues that the company advertises their products, the same style is applied. This includes the simple colour choice of red, white and black. 
  

As far as the design goes for the company, it remains minimalist and reinforces the same patterns and colours throughout its branding. For example, the KFC website features a white backdrop with the red and black used for text or pictograms. This simple reinforced use of the colour scheme allows for the photographs and videos to become the main focus. This means that the only other colour use is through the showcasing of the food itself.

Many of the advertisements for KFC show a sense of togetherness, friendship or family. This way they are marketing their products to a wider range of people and they market their food in a way that shows it to bring people together. An example of this would be the marketing of the KFC family bucket, as its purpose is to provide food for all the family and is to be shared. This marketing strategy is clever in the way that it can provide an enticing 'want' from the viewers, while teaching them that it is better to share with one another when eating together.

Here are several examples of the marketing advertisements by KFC, that feature the marketing strategies.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGpeQkoS3ps&list=PL5D0EC821DD42D261&index=7
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI22NT5LhJA&index=8&list=PL5D0EC821DD42D261
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtgPcYc81co&index=9&list=PL5D0EC821DD42D261

 The next step was to look at existing or previous designs for the KFC bucket. This way, several ideas could then be established as to how the company wants to target their audience. As shown here, the KFC buckets are reliant on the red, white and black colour scheme that the company uses through its branding. These colours give the viewer a sense of origin of the company, including Kentucky where the recipes originated. By doing this the company is representing its heritage and using this as a driving force for the brand.

It may also be beneficial to look at ways in which the origin of the brand could be incorporated into the design elements of the project. Looking at original design for KFC's packaging, that would have been used in the past will allow for an idea of how the brand has changed over time.

Here is an example of an original KFC bucket from 1969, along side a retro version of the bucket. With the original, we can see that the company used the face of the colonel in a 50s/60s illustrative style, with typeface that reflects the time period. The modernised retro version of the bucket uses the original style and reuses the illustrative design, while remaining minimal when it comes to the colour scheme.