Favor Delivery

When I joined Favor, we were just a small startup of about 50 crammed into a small house made for 20. Through my time there, I was part of not only building a brand from the ground up, but being apart of a culture, which played an active part in the company's success. As lead in-house designer, I took on everything from fundamental brand explorations, to defining art direction and brand standards, then application across all forms and media, digital and physical. 

Building a Brand from the Ground Up
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When I first joined Favor, there were only two designers: myself and Creative Director, Rob Pennington. We sat down the first day and discussed the tasks at hand, and then, we looked at the assets we had to work with. Our brand guide consisted of 2 pages that included a logo, a shirt design and a 1 color swatch. To many designers, this would be viewed in dread, but for myself, I saw this as an open canvas. It helped that Rob empowered me to take on the task with full tenacity. Over the course of the next few months, the brand and then the Design Team grew. And with each addition, we progressed and refined the brand to become something truly unique while still having each contributing members fingerprints attached to it. 

Photography
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The overall sentiment was to make the brand feel warm and approachable. This relates back to the friendly, one-on-one interaction the customer has with our delivery Runners. We experimented with various types of shoots and even photographers. It wasn't until Nicolai McCrary joined our team that the photography really took off. He brought a lot of talent and experience to the team, and was equally talented at portrait and food photography. 

Iconography & Illustration
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Now that we had a solid photo style, we had to make sure the illustration style matched in quality. Previously, the brand stuck to very basic illustration and iconography styles to look similar to then competitors. We realized in order to continue to stand out, we would need to further define our illustration process and style. When we brought in Chris Rogge onto the team, we added a dynamic, energetic and raw designer. We worked hand in hand, pencil in pencil to really flesh out an extensive visual system. 

Hacking the Brand:

A/B Testing
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In the spirit of the Favor founders, testing and gathering data was always a premium. As we began to advertise the brand outside of simple door hangers and mailers, we really took the opportunity to test how the brand performed. We were able to do this by working with our Marketing Team who helped attach analytics and metrics to ads so we could see how they performed across a broad spectrum of channels and platforms. Our results were sometimes pleasing, and at other times humbling. After each result, we stayed smart, learned from our success and mistakes and continued to hack away.

Ads & Marketing
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Throughout the learning and growing process, our team got to try a ton of different styles and executions which would all ladder up to a truly buttoned up Favor brand. The talent on hand could basically do anything we dreamed of from high end photography, intricate illustration ads and even video - most notably, having fun with stop motion animation. In that time, we also partnered with hundreds of restaurants, which allowed us to also custom tailor promos. This allowed us to not only cross pollinate the brand, but further help us define how the Favor brand plays with others Through it all, we made sure to build campaigns and messaging around Favor's value of delivery as a service. 

Telling Compelling Stories
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As the Favor brand began to take off, we were able to put focus onto the delivery Runner. They are the most integral part of the Favor experience as they serve as the customer's one-stop concierge. When we interviewed our Runners, we found a lot of compelling stories as to why they run, what they enjoy most and the overall outgoing personality of the community. 

Growth & Upward Movement
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As the company grew, the rest of the organization and Runner community really felt the wins. During it all, we made sure to enjoy our wins and show appreciation by being reflective on our accomplishments. Everything from Runners, queso orders, fastest delivery times, funny memes was a moment of celebration. 

Finding a Home: Favor HQ
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As the success grew, the company grew. We were fortunate enough to leave our our super cramped 5-bedroom frat house into our own permanent headquarters. I worked with the team to help outfit the office with everything from signage and wayfinding all the way to a full fledged mural. It was a true dream come true and proof that hard work and passion really pays off. I was so honored to be part of the entire journey.