It was in late 2018, that we received an opportunity to develop a brand of modern quick-service restaurant offering a range of wholesome options. At that time, in the middle of a fast-growing food and beverages business in Jakarta, a similar concept had been established by some brands. To name a few, some places that serve salads, wraps, smoothie bowls, organic food, and any other hearty meals they would like to offer. Which explained that the demand was there. The trend shows that people are starting to live more consciously, they care about what they consume, where it comes from, and how it is produced. We believe the trend somehow will grow into a culture, and we – as designers – were excited to be part of it.

Under the parent brand of KFC Indonesia, this concept would become the first in Southeast Asia after KFC launched K PRO in China. The innovation was quite eye-opening. Not only were they providing new menus, but also implementing technology in their retail store to escalate consumer’s experience. It was impressive to see a worldwide fast-food chain trying to fit in the market and being relevant to how people live and interact nowadays.

When it comes to naming, the client was already visioned to introduce this fresh establishment with a fresh name: Naughty by Nature. The name is not designed to have a strong relationship with KFC in the first place. It was planned to be an independent brand in order to achieve flexibility in developing the brand with fewer boundaries than its parent brand. Naughty by Nature is actually inspired by the name of an American hip hop trio which was one of the owner’s favorite music groups back then.

The Origin of Creation

We started to develop the idea by defining the name itself. There are no specific findings telling the definition of the term ‘Naughty by Nature’. In other words, ‘by nature’ means inborn or hereditary characteristics as an influence on or determinant of personality. Therefore, we interpreted it as inherently naughty/ naturally naughty. What are the words in existence to represent them, and what visual form could it be imagined into? The creative process was later continued quite spontaneously after we carried ‘Naughty by Nature’ as an action taken by humans. A familiar story that everyone has been told since a kid came to our mind as we got more excited about this project after taking it as our inspiration: The Fall of Adam and Eve.

The Biblical story of Adam and Eve captures the creation of the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden where they are permitted to eat freely of all the trees except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, a serpent deceives Eve into eating fruit from the forbidden tree and she gives some to Adam. They feel ashamed of their sins, and knowing that they are naked, Adam and Eve intuitively cover their bodies. The allegory shows how mischievous and disobedient humans are. We were born inherently naughty.

We further looked at some figures that mostly illustrate a man and woman with their genital area covered with leaves. Later, we found out that it was a fig leaf. The fig leaf is widely used figuratively to convey the covering up of an act or an object that is embarrassing or shameful. It’s also often used to conceal the genitals in paintings and sculptures. To put it in context, just like us, we sometimes feel guilty and shameful after eating ‘dirty’ food and determinately find a way to cover the sins by eating clean and healthy food. We saw the connection here and brought it as the concept of our design.

In the design development, we took the iconic and artistic shape of the leaf as our main element. It would be straightforward for the audience to recognize what the brand is about. On the other side, it might be a distinctive way to represent greens using this specific leaf. In our early-stage development, we have various explorations—some unused ideas that we still love, actually—playing with the fig leaf in the logo and putting some wittiness to the identity. Through the process, we understood the importance of balancing the new identity with its main brand. Naughty by Nature’s identity has to be complementary, not to be as prominent as KFC or even overpowering.

Guilty Pleasure No More

Aside from visual matters, we believe that the communication aspect would take an essential part in establishing the brand. Moreover, KFC is a global brand that has gained their reputation and customer loyalty. The messaging needs to be developed appropriately.

The data in a study shows that three in four Indonesian consumers at 75% say they aim to have a healthier diet this year (Mintel, 2017). Eating clean and living consciously is always everyone's New Year's resolution, nevertheless, it ends up that people often get tempted to eat what gives them more pleasure and feel regret after eating. It was the reason Naughty by Nature existed. They aim to transform the way people eat and live by serving nutritious and tasty food that is accessible for everyday consumption.

Although deliciousness is almost synonymous with unhealthy food, we believe that it doesn’t have to be that way. Delicious food can be healthy, too. We want people not to feel shame or guilt when eating something tasty, instead, they will feel good. Those insights then developed as the brand essence and articulated as the tagline states “Pleasure without guilt”.

We understand that those insights might be not applicable for some people or specific market groups. To be more precise, we divided the group of audiences into five categories and put them into a pyramid scheme. The bottom level of the scheme shows the group of people who are less interested in taking in healthier food as an option, which might be the biggest market. The top level of the scheme is the most unrelated market, those who are already fully committed to eating healthy food, those who might be vegetarian or vegan—which is only a small number of markets. From the scheme, we concluded that Naughty by Nature is targeted for the hybrid people, those who are conscious enough that perhaps would be the happiest market to welcome the brand's existence. They are exactly the audiences that we are talking to.

The Ten Commandments by Nature

To make it more fun, we amplified our idea by applying the concept into the copywriting. We believe that infusing a witty and fun approach to the brand would build better engagement with the audience. At that time, we were admiring the possibility of bringing a religious story as our inspiration in creating the brand. Therefore, we twisted the concept of Ten Commandments by God, and came up with the “Ten Commandments by Nature”:

1. You deserve better than bland-tasting salads.
2. Every day can be a cheating day.
3. Eat your greens.
4. It’s okay to pour a bit more of our secret sauces.
5. Lettuce know if there’s anything we can help you with.
6. If you’re heavily considering to commit to eating healthy, be-leaf that you can do it!
7. Even on a diet, don’t starve yourself. It’s a diet, not die-t.
8. The best, most enjoyable diet is the one you don’t feel like you’re on it.
9. Don’t weigh yourself every single day. But it’s okay to eat Naughty by Nature every single day.
10. Don’t go away, but do take away.

Closure

For some people, carrying spiritual matters into the idea might be a sensitive case. Meanwhile, we see this as a celebration of creativity and limitless possibility in the design process. We are totally aware of those boundaries, therefore we take it as a challenge to not put the idea into literal translation. It is our part as a designer to contextualize our design, make it relevant to the business and accessible for the audiences.