Smashburger

Smashburger approached our team at MG2 looking for a way to update their restaurants. The challenge was to distinguish themselves from competitors who seemed to all blur together.

After getting to know the Smashburger team, it seemed important to draw inspiration from their city of headquarters, Denver, CO, and to lean into the outdoorsy nature of their surroundings and pastimes. We conducted a competitive analysis and found most other burger chains were largely utilizing similar red and white color palettes, iconography, and environmental designs. Lastly, we wanted to create a system that was cohesive and repeatable in nature, but customized per location.

The result was a large format mural system that called upon iconic land, sea, and city scapes that would resonate with the local customer. We sprung for an energetic palette informed by the zippy colors found in ski, mountain biking, and hiking gear and incorporated wood grain texture to float atop the rich grayscale image selection. Above is a sample of two (of twelve) New York City based murals I completed during my time at MG2.