Kate Sudderth | Graphic Design
Project Statement | Howdy Cakes
Howdy Cakes is a bakery in Austin, Texas, known for combining Texas culture and cakes. This bakery fulfills people’s sweet cravings while celebrating and educating people on the greatness of Texas and building community through its trivia nights. Howdy Cakes does this through their Texas-inspired menu and monthly community nights that consist of cake tastings and fun family game nights.
The branding approach to capture these unique brand features and the brand story was achieved by using Texan motifs such as the cowboy boot pattern as cake icing while implementing a cake-inspired color palette to appeal to the baking connoisseur. The iconography set for this brand is composed of cuisine and Texan elements that help communicate the core messaging to their audience: cakes with a Texan twist. Consequently, their tagline becomes a strong literal play on words.
The Howdy Cake’s typography family consists of Thirsty Script Bold, which adds to the Western vibe and is used mainly in headers since it is a display typeface. On the other hand, Howdy Cake’s secondary type family uses Avenir Next primarily for general copy. This clean, modern, and unique typeface helps to emphasize the bakery’s contemporary approach to crafting cakes in Texas while offering excellent legibility and readability to its copy. Finally, Howdy Cake’s brand voice is positive, unique, welcoming, and informative. Overall, Howdy Cakes is a flexible, straightforward, and cohesive branding system with a unique Texan twist and play on their heritage.