KBA Vleishuis
(English = KBA Meat House aka Butchery)
This is a Afrikaans butchery, located in an area where Afrikaans and Dutch are the most dominate languages. A lot of the older generation here do not speak English. You will see that my work is done in Afrikaans and English for those who do not understand Afrikaans. My native language is Afrikaans.
The Website is not active yet, I will update this as soon as it becomes available.
A Bit of History
KBA Vleishuis (butchery) opened their doors in 2020, right before the pandemic hit, in Phillipolis, a small, quiet town that is secluded in the landscapes of the Free State Province in South Africa. It is considered the oldest settlement in Free State. They specialize in lamb, but offer other great meat as well.
Lamb from Philippolis in the Karoo district has got a reputation for being of the best quality and for good reason and is celebrated worldwide! KBA Vleishuis supply meat all over South Africa from the largest supermarket to the smallest household directly.
The owners of KBA Vleihuis, use their own livestock and the livestock of the local farmers of their area. These farmers take pride in their work and if you ever find yourself in this little town, Phillipolis, make sure try out the local cuisine.
Investigation: Project Requirements
What do they "think" they Require?
*They want a website with a online store.
*They also want a logo which they want to use to brand their cars and store.
Me and my partner work together when its comes to websites as I am better with the front-end design and he is much more efficient in making my ideas come to life.
The Website Fiasco
Now let me give you a little bit of in-site on why I labelled it as a fiasco:
I searched for different well known butchery's websites to get an idea of how their websites look like (you know, to get a feel for what was suppose to show on a butcher's site). All the butcheries that I searched either had a very primitive site (with this I mean a 1 page site with their address, name and contact details...that's it.) or they didn't have one at all.
They do not have any form of online stores or a showcase of their products or services, they have NO online presence, not even a Facebook page.
All of these butcheries rely on radio advertisements and word-of-mouth only. This is all great, if it was still the 1980's, but in today's world where everyone goes online to make their purchases or locate places they are looking for, this will never work. It is a very narrow minded way of working, especially for a business.
I found 1 butchery, out of maybe 15 butchers I that I searched for, that had a amazing website, it had a perfect layout of their products, the store was so straight forward and it looked sleek and modern. They even had their own recipe book for you to download. This was what I was looking for. I got everything I needed to design the website for them.
Other Forms of Marketing?
After seeing the lack of online presence, I went to 3 butchers near me to have a look at how they choose to advertise because I wanted to do more for KBA Vleishuis than just a website.
2 of the butcheries didn't have any form of advertisement e.g. pamphlets, posters, not even business cards, nothing. Just the wrap on their store's window.
The 1 closest to where I live, had a pamphlet at least, but...it gives you a headache when you look at it. It looked like it was made in PowerPoint by a 2yr old. Everything was bold and written in All Caps, scattered around the page without any order. The background was so blurry and pixelated that you can barely make out what it was suppose to be. I took one home and when my partner saw it, he threw it away instantly. I asked him what he thought, he just said "I am not going to figure out what it was about, it looks sickening". He didn't even notice it was from a butchery. But hey, at least they had one.
I visited a small butcher that we used to go to a long time ago, I asked them how to they get new customers. They told me that they don't get new people in, they only get the people who live in close proximity.
_______________________________________________________________________
"Why do we need a website, it doesn't do anything."
"Online store? That seems silly, who would use that?"
"We are in the phone book and we are mentioned on the radio!"
- What the butchers say when asked about what they think of getting a
website or asked how they market themselves.
Conclusion
I was not going to let my client make the same mistakes as the rest.
I decided that a logo and a website will not be the only thing that they are going to use for marketing. I wanted to design a whole package deal for them. The website will work wonders for the tech-savvy people, but I took the older or less tech-savvy or old-fashioned people into consideration.
After discussing my ideas with the owners, they agreed.
What I will be doing:
* Design multiple logos, because they are 3 owners with different taste, I decided to make
6 different logos.
- The logo must have a white background as they agreed that they will be branding
their cars with it and their cars are white.
* Design 3 pamphlets.
* Design A0 posters showing the meat cut diagrams for beef, lamb, pork and chicken.
- This is to put up in the store itself.
* Design a double-sided, tri-fold brochure.
- In this brochure you get a little bit of history, mission, vision, meet your butchers
(short bio of each butcher) of the butchery and contact details.
* Design 3 double-sided business cards.
* Design their price lists that will be displayed in the store.
* Design the front-end for their website.
The Designs
The Logo
The owner whom I was working with, stated that he has been playing around with an idea he had. He wanted a meat cut diagram of a cow with their name under it. I made a few using his concept but I also made some of my own ideas.
They decided that they will be using 2 of the logos, the one on the bottom left to brand the store and the one on the bottom right as their main logo that will be used on everything else.
The Posters
I designed the basic 4 cut diagrams: Beef, Lamb, Chicken and Pork.
They offer wild or game meat as well but the variety of these meats makes it too complicated to narrow down for a cut diagram. These posters are made in A0 size, and they will be placed in the store. I wanted to use a white background for minimalism's sake and is looks cleaner and more modern that the cluttered posters most butchers have in their stores.
I designed the cut diagram myself, and I must say, this was the first time that I have "butchered" something. When you look up reference images you will be surprised how many people depict the cuts differently.
I kept these posters English because most Afrikaans people use the English terms for meat.
Fun Fact: Afrikaans people also use the English names when talking about car parts. If you tell someone your "vonk proppe" stopped working, they will look at you like you've gone nuts. Then you say spark plugs, they know what the hell you meant. Or a "knormoer" is the starter. You see why we use English?
The Pamphlet
After witnessing that nightmare of a pamphlet of that butcher I visited, I wanted something that popped, easy to read and pleasing to the eye. Keep in mind the website is still a work in progress and isn't active as of yet. I placed the address there as a placeholder.
These were the first pamphlets that I had to design ever, but not to toot my own horn, I think they came out great. The owners picked the first one.
The Business Card
I wanted to do a single-sided card for each owner/butcher, but they said they would like 1 card showing everyone's info, address and web address. This was a lot of info and the logo must also appear somewhere, which is why I decided to go double-sided to prevent a messy, cluttered design.
I blurred out the numbers as I had only the one owners permission to show his number. The other 2 owners have not giving consent. If you are a South Africa and would like to contact them, please feel free to use the website.
The owners picked the first card. Is it the one that I designed using the same concept of the pamphlet that they picked.
The Brochure
I made 2 double-sided, tri-fold brochures. One in English and one in Afrikaans. Surnames and Numbers have been blurred for privacy purposes I do not have their permission to make these public yet. You will notice that the "Ons Span/ Our Team" still has place holders for text and pictures, I am still waiting on them to send me their bio's and pictures. I will update this as soon as I have made the final edit.
The Price Lists
They have 3 price lists: One for their meat selections per kg, one for smaller portions and one for their Biltong. These lists will be displayed in the butchery.
If you do not know what Biltong is, it is a form of dried, cured meat that originated in South Africa. Various types of meat are used to produce it, ranging from beef to game meats such as ostrich or kudu. It is related to beef jerky in that they are both spiced, dried meats; however, the typical ingredients, taste and production processes differ.
The price lists are in Afrikaans, seeing as almost everyone who would physically go to the store are Afrikaans spoken.
I have blurred put the prices as they might change before going to the printers. If you would like to see the prices, feel free to visit the website.
Terminology:
Skaap = Lamb | Bees = Beef | Hoender = Chicken | Vark = Pork | Wors = Sausage | Tjop = Chop
The Result
The idea is when new customers order online or come to the store to make a purchase, they will receive a small "gift" parcel with their order. This parcel will contain a pamphlet, business card and 2 brochures (Afrikaans and English). Just a little welcoming gesture.
It will look something like this:
The Website
The website will have 4 main sections that must appear: Home page, showcase page, contact page and a online store.
* The Homepage will contain all the info that is found on the brochure.
* The Show Case page will show their selection of meat and pictures taken in the store.
Here they will be showing you what is happening inside and what to expect.
* The Contact page, well...it's in the name.
* The Online Store is where the magic is going to happen.
As soon as the website is complete, I will update this project.
