Central Kitchen
Overview & Approach
Sacramento City Unified School District is changing the face of school nutrition. By building a centralized, state of the art kitchen and promising farm-to-fork quality, the district is committed to restaurant style options and innovation in the way students are being fed. Once up and running, the Central Kitchen will serve over 30,000 meals per day at full capacity, spanning students across K-12 grades.
A project of this scale and impact necessitated a brand and website that would accurately represent the bold, impactful mission of the Nutrition Services Department and through our time spent with the leaders from this team, it was an honor to reflect their passion for the work through the final brand identity and website.
Brand Identity
The Central Kitchen brand leads with a hand-drawn circular logo with interlocking letterforms that communicate a sense of unity and collaboration. Balancing innovation with approachability, the design system was created to be flexible using color, overlapping organic elements, dynamic shapes, and beautiful photography. Inspired by the local Sacramento region, the color palette features earth tones of golds, reds, greens, and blues. The illustrated food and agriculture inspired elements tie back to the main brand mission to provide healthy, sustainable, fresh, and local food to all schoolchildren within the district.
The Central Kitchen brand leads with a hand-drawn circular logo with interlocking letterforms that communicate a sense of unity and collaboration. Balancing innovation with approachability, the design system was created to be flexible using color, overlapping organic elements, dynamic shapes, and beautiful photography. Inspired by the local Sacramento region, the color palette features earth tones of golds, reds, greens, and blues. The illustrated food and agriculture inspired elements tie back to the main brand mission to provide healthy, sustainable, fresh, and local food to all schoolchildren within the district.
Website
In strategizing, designing and developing the new Central Kitchen website, it was critical that the number one audience – parents from within the district – could easily navigate the site and find the resources necessary to ensure their children are well fed at school.
By leveraging a sticky primary navigation that sits just beneath local, seasonal photography from farmers who sell their crops to the district, we were able to ensure that the users always know where they are on the site. Additionally, a customizable “Featured Partners” map was incorporated into the design to display the various farms that the Central Kitchen sources from throughout the state of California, further illustrating the true “Farm-to-School” vision of the project.
In strategizing, designing and developing the new Central Kitchen website, it was critical that the number one audience – parents from within the district – could easily navigate the site and find the resources necessary to ensure their children are well fed at school.
By leveraging a sticky primary navigation that sits just beneath local, seasonal photography from farmers who sell their crops to the district, we were able to ensure that the users always know where they are on the site. Additionally, a customizable “Featured Partners” map was incorporated into the design to display the various farms that the Central Kitchen sources from throughout the state of California, further illustrating the true “Farm-to-School” vision of the project.
Collaborations
Photography by Erin Alderson
Photography by Erin Alderson