From Quality Bakery to Invermere Bakery – How did it happen?

From pretzel to swirling style… The Quality Bakery was ready for a change. In operation since 1981, the brand had gone through various iterations, all similar and featuring a traditional pretzel and wheat sheaf with classic serif font. The pretzel has been such a  prominent motif that it even features larger than life on the roof. It seemed necessary to find a way to incorporate a pretzel into the new brand – after all, the bakery valued tradition and old fashioned values.

Through our discussions and the brand development process it became clear that the quality of the product – the artisanal processes that produced such wonderful tasting products – is the driving force behind the business. The bakery has espoused many contemporary touches over the last few years – not only packaging touches like fluted muffin wrappers but also avant garde products like maple doughnuts with bacon. How could we fuse the old and the new into a modern look that still conveys warmth, artisan products and a high level of service?

And while we’re at it – what does “Quality” mean? Would it make sense to shorten to “QB” or even “Q”? Or should we drop the Quality altogether?

The downtown experience has emerged as a value – providing people with a place to be downtown, a place to sit and to experience old world sharing. It’s a haven from city life for out-of-towners, and a place to continue congregate for moms and kids, students, girlfriends, meetings of the mind.

Our brand advocate and designer Origin Brand Strategic Development offered three possible graphic avenues – one with a more traditional pretzel shaped more like a B (it was an ugly thing1), a “Q” as frame and banner, and a more fluid spiral B. The third concept was instantly a hit and struck a cord with each of us.

As we continued to develop the look of the new brand, the fact that no one calls the bakery “Quality Bakery” kept coming up. The name offered no sense of uniqueness or place. The website itself is already invermerebakery.com. Everyone refers to Quality Bakery as “The Bakery” already so why not call it so?  There is so much power in taking up a name that is already used colloquially.

And make it the place to be – downtown – in the face of competition from grocers and other bakers. The Bakery has a charming downtown cafe experience to offer – especially with some improvements in functional design. Speaking of which, a simple discussion about pretzels and a logo development snowballed into a company wide renovation for a sweeter, more streamlined space that offers our products in a more appetizing, modern light . But that’s another story (and another blog post coming up!)

Peter made a call to his lawyers and presto – it’s official – Quality Bakery is now the Invermere Bakery. We’ve downplayed “Invermere” in graphics but it tells part of the tale so it actually adds value to the brand. And the history of Quality Bakery – opened since 1981 – could feature in some decor – a retro museum-style photo wall is coming up!

As we proceeded to finalization, it became apparent that much of the brand oomph would come from branding bread – so some attention was put toward how the brand might play on bread bags – something different and functional as well. The black and white on kraft is such an appealing, simple style but we agreed that splashes of colour could really make the brand.

Every piece of packaging, spatial decision, marketing material brought more questions and answers as to what constitutes the Invermere Bakery brand. But that’s another story…