Pentagram gave London's Ichibuns a tagline to demystify its Showa-era weirdness

Ichibuns' rockabilly-meets-diner interiors by Studio Glitt were striking but didn't convey the food offering — wagyu burgers to sashimi — so much of London Chinatown's passing trade ignored or misunderstood it.

Say what the place is in one shouty line — 'Japanese Super-Diner!' — and ramp up Showa-era pop imagery so passing trade stops misreading the brand.

Pentagram's Angus Hyland refreshed the visual identity, messaging, website, packaging and environmental graphics: a colourful patchwork of original Showa Era imagery on menus and interiors, animated menu icons nodding to meal preparation, and colours pushed toward the fun, flirtatious interior.

The redesign was built to 'demystify the restaurant's weirdness, and inject a bit of kapow'; no commercial results were disclosed in the coverage.

Ichibuns opened in London's Chinatown in 2017, the brainchild of the team behind Nobu and Ping-Pong, positioned as upmarket fast food — wagyu beef burgers to salmon sashimi — inside interiors by Noriyoshi Muramatsu of Tokyo's Studio Glitt, inspired by post-war Showa Era pop culture. The look was attention-grabbing, but it didn't explain what was on the menu.

In 2018 Pentagram's Angus Hyland was brought in — originally for packaging that doubled as tableware and was receiving bad feedback: food served in brown cardboard boxes and trays felt like a misfit with the gourmet quality of the burgers and sushi, and was 'incredibly wasteful of resources'. Hyland quickly found the deeper problem: 'there was no clear description of their unique offering'.

The fix was directness plus tone: a clearer tagline, 'Japanese Super-Diner!', a colourful patchwork of original Showa Era imagery across menus and environmental graphics, and a series of animated menu icons that playfully nod to how meals are prepared. Hyland: the design pushed graphic touchpoints toward the interior's fun, flirtatious character, 'to demystify the restaurant's weirdness, and inject a bit of kapow!'

The diagnosis matters: the restaurant didn't need a new concept, it needed a sentence — identity work that starts by describing the offer, not decorating it.

Amplifying the existing Showa interior rather than inventing a new direction kept the brand world coherent from doorway to menu to box.

Animated menu icons put the food and its preparation into the identity, closing the exact gap (look great, food unclear) that caused passers-by to walk past.

Atmosphere alone can't carry an offer: sometimes the whole fix is telling people what you are — plainly, loudly, at the door.

The refreshed identity, messaging, website and graphics were in place by late 2018; Creative Review's coverage published no commercial results for the restaurant.