Hawker food deserves beautiful photography, are we right?

Creating localized and endearing stories relevant to the target audience’s everyday.

Our client is an amazing local distillery that creates flavourful, forward-thinking & nostalgic spirits with homage to Asian flavours & heritage. They needed help articulating their story, market positioning & USPs. This is where Grimm stepped in.

We re-designed their brand logo, product packaging, website and crafted their story, brand message, voice, personality, art/photography/social media direction and strategized their overarching concept: Craftmasters of quality spirits & flavours. A balance of old-world knowledge and new-age thinking; where the science of master distilling meets the art of aroma & taste.

Product label design for Singapore’s first single grain whiskey by Compendium Spirits. Design conceptualization based on premium brand positioning and visual motif of rice.

A whimsical visual interpretation of the world’s first 8% ABV soju
made to be lighter for more casual consumption.

Building awareness & generating leads for Hong Spices, an amazingly aromatic Kampot pepper product, to Singaporean foodies via social media advertising.

Scope involved:

-Developing brand art direction + creating key visuals

-Planning & executing end-to-end lead-generation campaign via FB & IG

Creating Chuga Soju’s art direction, content pillars & voice.

Making Chuga stand out from a very homogenous soju industry.

Driving engagement & excitement within the target segment of young 20-35 year old folks in Singapore.

Infographic designs for Singapore’s first-ever mall live-streaming shopping festival! Developed 3 designs to visually communicate to Singapore’s lifestyle media publications & journalists about the event details & instructions, instead of boring ole chunks of text.

Hong Spices wanted a refresh for their e-commerce product listing images. Visuals that capture the vibrancy, spice & life of their amazingly fragrant Kampot peppers. Here are Grimm’s visuals, peppered with flair.

Splashing vibrancy to our design for MyBrands.SG’s B2C & B2B informational brochure, a specialised job-seeking portal for retail fashion, beauty & lifestyle companies.

MyBrands.SG is operated by IDA’SG, Singapore’s retail consultancy specialist.

We built our client their own delivery platform within 7 days when Singapore law enforced all F&B’s to go takeaway & delivery only during the COVID-19 period. We helped generate >$2,000 in delivery orders in the first week by creating optimized lead-gen & conversion advertisements on social media. The platform is also an end-to-end & user-friendly solution which helps our client earn more margins per order (than being on established delivery platforms), with delivery logistics provided.

- 1 cheeky idea to satire the 'Asian Flat Croissant'

- 15 minutes of creative brainstorming

- >5,000 engagements across Facebook, Instagram & Reddit under a week

- 2 Media features - Marketing Magazine Group & AsiaOne.com

- $0 advertising & media spend

“1 Michelin Star, that’s the goal.” exclaimed our client, as he further reiterated that he wanted to create an experiential Central Asian dining concept which isn’t pretentious and “must be dope”.

We really had fun with this one. By understanding the owner’s vision, we created the entire brand ecosystem. Brand name, logo, story, USP, personality and unique experience rituals were designed around the themes of fire, journey & igniting the 5 senses, with the purpose of being uniquely memorable to the customers, and appealing for the gram’ (Instagram).

In addition, we recommended the restaurant be situated within another bar concept of the owner’s (an inverse speakeasy) to stay true to the nomadic theme of ‘being adaptable to anywhere’. This opened up additional revenue opportunities within the same retail space.

Bee’s (originally Bee Bee’s) was first located in Boat Quay, known for as an unapologetically fun & accessible tiki bar.

With our client, we masterminded the concept to move to Telok Ayer, to become the facade to the entrance of our other project, The Nomads - a Singapore’s first Central Asian Omakase concept. An inverse ‘speakeasy’ concept where the restaurant was hidden in Bee’s to cultivate The Nomads’ nomadic theme and to utilize untapped retail space for more revenue opportunities.

We re-branded Bee’s from a tiki bar into an “Island Drinkery” (we proudly coined this term) to elevate its brand position to align with its new location being a frontage for a premium dining concept, and being in the CBD. The interior design had to follow suit - a fine act balancing building a premium, quality feel whilst retaining Bee’s brand mantra of being unapologetically fun & accessible.

There are so many craft beers in Singapore, and the competition is fierce.

We’re helping our client, Hopstation to stand out by identifying their USPs, and making it into compelling stories to tell on social media. It’s more than just the craft beer offering, it’s the experience :

-The contentment when one finds a new favourite brew

-The surprise when one realizes Hopstation’s food menu is no ordinary bar grub

-The discovery that this bar is a place to rekindle with old friends and be acquainted with new ones too.

On top of that, we’ve strategically established corporate partnerships (with our target market’s companies) around the bar’s area (Telok Ayer) to attract desired footfall, and growing our PMEB community

“NO MEDIOCRE BAR GRUB!” was the first line written on WAN’s drawing board. We tirelessly designed each dish to invigorate stomach growls, palate satisfaction, visual appeal & social-sharing worthiness.

We breathed life into WAN’s food & beverage philosophy of ‘paying homage to traditional Asian flavours with cheeky modern culinary twists’. Building alignment to WAN’s ‘Asian-Utopian’ brand story.

Think Crackling Siew Yoke Pizza, Kecap Manis Glazed Buttermilk Fried Chicken Donburi, Asian Butter Poached Crab Mantou Sliders and Flame-Torched Korean Jajang Cheese Fries. Accompanied with nostalgic Asian-flavoured alcoholic bubble teas of Thai iced milk tea, chendol, iced lychee, and Yakult.

We can see you salivating from here.

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As one of Singapore’s top sellers of salted egg yolks snacks, an extensive social media campaign was needed for the launch of The Golden Duck’s two new flavours and new brand direction - from pre-launch, to the launch itself to post-launch.

Grimm organised and executed their digital strategy with photography, design, copywriting and artwork to hype up current loyalists and intrigue new ones.

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The perfect gift for love (in) language. That was the message we wanted to illustrate for The Novel Encounter’s offering of mysteriously wrapped books and customised typewritten poetry.

The fun part was the execution - making sure the brand’s promise and concept was properly visualised on screen. We were there every step of the way, from the process of conceptualisation, to the music choice, the storyboarding and sourcing for talents, and being there on shooting days to make sure everything went according to plan.

Watch The Novel Encounter’s video on our client page.

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As one of Japan’s top retail chains, LUMINE launched its first unique “mall-in-a-mall” experience in Singapore at Clarke Quay’s Central. Retailing a wide array of women’s fashion and accessories from some of the top brands in Japan, LUMINE’s wide floor space contains multiple concepts set to mimic the looks of individual boutiques in a mall.

Grimm was tasked with the social media content strategy, Facebook and Instagram Advertising as well as copywriting with the brief for “I Am Who I Am”, a bold, individualistic launch mantra for LUMINE seeking to build camaraderie with independent, sophisticated female PMETs in Singapore. The launch saw LUMINE’s creative agency engage multiple strong female personalities from both Singapore and Japan as part of a series of location swap photoshoots featuring LUMINE’s apparel collections modelled against iconic locations in both Singapore and Tokyo. Grimm supported these shoots with content planning, copywriting, ad targeting and optimisation, adopting a succinct, sophisticated brand voice that resonated with target audiences for a successful launch.

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While managing FortyTwo’s (www.fortytwo.sg), one of the challenges faced was small cart sizes. There is a certain minimum cost required to bring in a website visitor into an e-commerce website and it is key that e-commerce business owners optimise storefronts for conversions - increasing the average amount per online order, so as to improve profits.

We proposed and oversaw implementation of cross-selling and up-selling in product pages, to visually prompt users to purchase more products or spend more on a product.

Many claim to be beneficial because they have the loudest voice, but we rather stick to our voice of relevance.

Generated tremendous social and digital publication media hype for both WAN’s indoor nightclub and outdoor bar. Accumulated media value of over SGD80,000 with $0 paid media spend. It all boiled down to hard work, networks and pitching the right angles to our media friends.

Also, notice the 3D moving visual? First to create such content in Singapore’s nightlife and F&B game. Told you we’re quite different.

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This isn’t just a mac & cheese business, this is love, actually. It all started from a heartwarming dinner which swept her boyfriend off his feet. The young couple wanted to share the same warmth they felt with the tummies of all of Singapore’s foodies.

Grimm stepped in to elevate raw ideas & passion into tantalising mac & cheese, with an appeal to both the eyes & stomach. From a R&D angle, we collaborated with our client to experiment with new ingredients, conceptualise new flavours and toppings, exchange cooking technique and curate dish presentations.

The professional shot was thoroughly planned to ensure each shot captured the very essence of the brand - young love, warmth & playfulness.

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The Golden Duck Co. is Singapore’s premier purveyor of gourmet local snacks.

While popular and in high demand globally, TGD faces challenges in the local market, especially with more competition entering the market, seeking to capitalise on the salted egg craze here in Singapore.

Grimm manages TGD’s Display Advertising and Social Media Remarketing to ensure that every Singaporean foodie knows of TGD and its products, and that every user who has visited the TGD website has undergone the full TGD brand experience, including updates on the latest products launched and festive promotions etc.

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In the competitive space of Suntec City, we strategised every element of WAN outdoor gastrobar to illustrate its cheeky, whimsical Asian-inspired vibes.

From the bright logo and neon sign to attract people from afar, to its curated music playlist, fairylight and artwork display, down to the cutlery, menu, furniture, napkins and coasters, everything was taken into consideration for the overall customer experience.

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The Novel Encounter is about sharing a love for literature and nostalgia with the public. We wanted to properly communicate this from the design, to the photography, to the branding collaterals.

Grimm used a mixture of fountain pen calligraphy and vintage typewriting to infuse whimsy, class and an added air of mystery through typography.

Wax ink stamps were affixed for an aura of class and raw wooden surfaces used in displays to allow the smooth textures of the products to stand out.

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When the folks behind Haylee came to Grimm, they had a good product that they had created and optimised over years of selling thousands of mattresses.

There was only one problem - they did not know how to position this new budget memory foam mattress against a market of international competitors, despite already coming up with a brand name and a logo to go with it.

Grimm came in to analyse the local market and craft a market positioning message that would resonate with Haylee’s audiences (as translated into the copy), while creating proprietary aspects to elements within the Haylee mattress. Over a thousand Haylee mattresses have been sold to date.

Check out the Haylee here

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The Armoury is a gastro bar catered to the office crowd that populates the vicinity such as Shaw Towers and South Beach Towers. Previously an armoury during Singapore’s early years, the aptly named diner now arms the inhabitants of South Beach with nourishment and sustenance for the day, operating from breakfast till dinner, and even supper on weekends.

Comfort food was The Armoury's bread and butter, think burgers, mac and cheese and gourmet hotdogs.

We were commissioned to photograph various menu items as part of their social media content and physical advertisements found within the complex at South Beach Quarter. We went with natural lighting for the photography style and made sure to capture the little details of each dish.

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Admit it. We’ve all thought of excuses to not attend a party after receiving and frowning at an event image (with tacky & clichéd designs) sent by friend, colleague or promoters. We could never let WAN wallow in that sinkhole.

This guestlist visual toyed with one of WAN’s brand pillars - “玩“ or “play” to foreshadow what each night had in store. Staying true to WAN’s Asian roots, our design included with Chinese vintage stylised paper background and complementing a visual highlighting WAN’s signature service crew dressed in a cheongsam. To top it off, a cheeky wordplay on commonly announced during the arrival of ancient Chinese royalty - “女神驾到”, to lightheartedly parallel the importance of delivering excellent customer service to WAN’s female customer segments.

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The menu is the most frequent direct brand touchpoint for consumers. Hence it was pivotal for its design to visually depict WAN’s brand personality and food philosophy.

The sleek, sharp & clean menu format complimenting Asian dining visual elements and Chinese characters was to convey WAN’s homage paid to traditional Asian flavours with a dash of modern culinary twists.

The colour palettes and photography filters were selected to emit WAN’s vibrant and playful nature.

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The artwork. The neon sign. The cage. The swing by the DJ booth. The uniforms. The plushies in our logo uniforms. The video content playing in the television screen displays. Everything was meticulously planned to make this place as iconic as possible. But here comes the highlight.

For WAN, which featured Singapore’s first aquarium bar top, we made sure every detail was eye-catching and deliberate.

We decorated the interior with premium champagne bottles, customised drinking glasses, thematic showcase items and old Chinese coins scattered across the sand. Then the highlight, bathed in a mystic neon blue light, artificial jellyfish sourced from Australia that were so life-like that patrons were often heard exclaiming that they were real even after close examination.

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For The Novel Encounter, given its concept of whimsical gifts, we wanted eye-catching elements about the brand. We wanted to create a buzz in the public, not just with the book reading community (which is its core product) but also people in general.

Tugging on the heartstrings with nostalgic items in a modern setting, we brought in a typewriter and a wax seal. And it was undoubtably a conversation starter - with the public and the press alike.

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For every brand, it cannot exist in its own entity. A business, much like man, is not an island. So we strategised the best way to associate The Novel Encounter with various other businesses to garner awareness for both online and retail.

Aside from placement inside relevant newsletters, online magazines, websites and online publications, we also set out events and locations where the brand could be further recognised such as cafes, boutique hotels, flower stores and gift shops.

There are numerous brands that we communicated directly on behalf of the brand, and the collaborations are currently in the process right now. Onwards and upwards! Not just for book lovers - it’s a gift to show your loved ones to appreciate the finer things in life.

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Providing a customised service is tricky to scale, but the beauty of it is that it makes the brand look heartfelt. Which is what The Novel Encounter is trying to achieve - so with the owner as a budding author/writer, we strategised an angle of providing customised poetry.

Give The Novel Encounter three words, and they will turn it into poetry. Written by the founder, it is slotted into a beautiful vintage brown envelope and sealed with their signature wax seal.

This concept has not only increased traffic, sales and purchase amount per customer - it has landed the founder a book deal, where a collection of these poems will be published in a book, that can be available in bookstores across Singapore as well as on The Novel Encounter’s official website.

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Alcoholic bubble tea was introduced to WAN’s outdoor bar to boost sales and increase hype. It was so successful that patrons of the club demanded for it to be available indoors as well.

We reinvented nostalgic classic flavours into signature cocktail mixes for patrons to chase an all time high. From the conceptualisation stage, to working with mixologists and participating in taste-tests, to menu design, photoshoot organisation and copywriting, to social media strategy, to meeting with media publications and influencers. We were there every step of the way to ensure the execution of this signature drink was a bonafide success.

It increased outdoor bar revenue, with women in particular Instagramming the drinks in cute floaties that they could take home. This new addition to the menu was a primary reason so many media outlets reached out to write publications about WAN. The client was very happy about this. That made us very happy.

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We could save time by designing conventional F&B promotional posters. with crummy designs & stock images. But, we rather not.

Staying true to WAN’s brand, we chose vintage colours, Chinese characters, simple layout to bring out the main selling point - $5 happy hour.

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Defining the suitable target market is the easy part. Generating relevance and leaving them wanting more, is a different animal. However, the inner primal hunters in us were not fazed.

We kept the interests & psyche of WAN’s target market in mind, at each and every step of our brainstorming process. From planning the interior design, customer journey, loyalty giveaways, events, music programming to social media content - everything was designed to elicit emotions of elation, freedom & belonging.

Furthermore, Grimm’s clout was leveraged to invite networks of relevant individuals to enjoy WAN’s experience, and let them tell their unforgettable tales to friends & strangers.

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WAN’s Asian influence lies not just within the decor and menu items, but can also be found in numerous event posters.

Solid Gold with Koflow, SOF & Axel Brezzy

Solid Gold is considered to be one of the longest running Hip-hop party events in Singapore. Upon closer look, the poster is a playful take on the Ancient Chinese coinage which acts as a double entendre on the word “gold” and Wan’s Asian influence.

Timewarp with Fadille & T-Fresh

Timewarp is a one-off club event, based on the sounds of early 2000s. The design features an old taxi model with the license plate warped into the text “晚“ which literally translates to night in English.

Fortune Cookie with Ollie Des, Gemstarr & T-Fresh

Fortune Cookie happens every Wednesday night and is catered to the 808 addicts and Hip-Hop aficionados of WAN

The design upholds the name with a Fortune Cookie dubbed into the style of flashing neon lights.

Second Chance with Gemstarr, TMO & Sonorous

The event was titled “Second Chance“ due to a conversation between a close friend. The idea was based on always having a second chance even though you’ve just missed out an epic party on a Friday night. Second Chance is the answer to your Saturday nights and in design, we decided to place the faces of our DJs as the focus

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