Background
I met Andreas Landén in 2020, in the middle of covid. Restaurang Jord had been open in central Linköping since 2018, cooking Swedish ingredients by season — and doing considerably more than sourcing them: hunting, fishing, growing, fermenting, curing, making its own drinks.
We agreed to test working together for a while. The test became a retainer with a fixed number of hours a month, and it is still running five years later.
Creative team
| Andreas Carlsson | Creative direction, video, photography, web |
| Andreas Landén | Founder |
| Oskar Gunnarsson | Head Chef |
| Katarina Hoverman | Sommelier |
| Emil Svedin | Art director, Jord logo |
The problem
Jord's story was never the food. It was everything behind the food: the people, the hunt, the fishing, the growing, the fermenting, the charcuterie. None of it was being told.
The reason isn't particular to Jord. Restaurants are, as a rule, technically uninterested. Setting up systems, scheduling social work, keeping a publishing routine — all of it sits at the bottom of a list that starts with service tonight. The graphic skill to design a site or a campaign isn't in the building either. Jord had the story and no time, no resources and no hands to tell it.
Concept
Behind the plate
Restaurant marketing defaults to the plate: the dish, lit and centred, menu underneath. It has become the easiest thing to photograph and the least distinguishing thing you can show. Today every good kitchen has a good-looking plate.
So we decided to go the other way. The work Jord did before the plate was the part nobody else could copy, and it was already happening every week with nobody there to record it. The job was to be in the room.
That also guided the rest of the visual language: don't let anything get in the way of what is behind the plate.
The brand
Carried, not replaced
Jord's identity was not mine to begin with. What I've done since is carry it.
The Jord logo was drawn by art director Emil Svedin at agency Markus, and it's a fantastic logo. Replacing it was never on the table. My job was to carry it into a Jord that kept growing: a new site, newsletters, campaigns, five years of social, print, and two dining rooms that didn't exist when it was drawn. The foundation has stood untouched for almost ten years. Everything around it has moved.
There is no ui animations or motion in this updated design system. The concept rules them out, nothing should get between a guest and the work behind the plate. The visual elements has to have a guiding functionality by helping a guest find a date, book it, and turn up.
The site
The site is the foundation of the communication. Designed and built in WordPress, in Swedish and English. Behind it, the point-of-sale integrations, and a newsletter platform I'd describe as a loyalty platform that isn't loyalty — built around sending rather than around points and tiers, because a kitchen that changes its menu with the season always has something worth telling people and nothing worth rewarding them for.
