- 04.07.14
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[Photo: Reinhard Hunger for Fast Company]
Innovation By Design 2014: A Q&A With Munchery's Lead Designer, Ozzy Urrutia
West Coast delivery service Munchery is a 2014 Innovation By Design Awards finalist in the "Graphic" category. Join Co.Design writer Shaunacy Ferro for a live chat with Munchery's lead designer, Ozzy Urrutia, at 11:30 a.m. ET on Monday, October 13th.
West Coast delivery service Munchery is a 2014 Innovation By Design Awards finalist in the "Graphic" category. Join Co.Design writer Shaunacy Ferro for a live chat with Munchery's lead designer, Ozzy Urrutia, at 11:3 0a.m. ET on Monday, October 13th!
You can start submitting your questions to the chat using the "Make a comment" box below. And you can learn more about this year's Innovation By Design Conference and Awards here.
You can start submitting your questions to the chat using the "Make a comment" box below. And you can learn more about this year's Innovation By Design Conference and Awards here.
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You can learn more about our Innovation By Design Awards and Conference here:
Innovation By Design Awards 2014
Co.DesignThe first conference dedicated to the business impact of design. -
Hi everyone! We're going to get started in just a few minutes. Submit your questions now--the earlier we get them, the more likely they are to get answered. And for a bit of background, make sure to read Fast Company's previous coverage of Munchery and its approach to the food delivery business.
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Hello everyone! Thanks for having me. I am the lead designer at Munchery and previously I was at Nurun SF (Formerly Odopod) and before that I was part of Ogilvy & Mather NYC.
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Hello everyone! We’re here with with Ozzy Urrutia, lead designer of Munchery, one of the finalists in Fast Company’s Innovation by Design awards in the graphic category. To get this thing started, Ozzy, why don’t you explain briefly what Munchery does?
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Munchery is a gourmet food delivery service. We currently are in SF and Seattle and we offer scheduled ahead deliveries and on-demand delivery.
What sets us apart is that we hire top local chefs with years of experience and we use technology to handle complex logistics and make it super convenient to order food. -
As lead designer you have to wear a few hats within the company. My main role is to make sure that Munchery's brand is being communicated properly through all channels. That includes marketing, PR, website/App design, and helping figure out roadmaps and new features.
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I'm always shocked by how many startups don't really incorporate design into their work beyond the aesthetics. How does it work at Munchery? Are you part of the whole company or just the visual aspects?
Rossat 11:29 AMSo what role does design play in a business that revolves around food delivery?
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Munchery is interesting since you are able to get involved in different aspects of the business. You get to have a say and give your thoughts and ideas in business related issues or if you have a creative solutions you can speak up.
I remember being in a meeting where I got to help figure out how to reduce the footprint of our bags in order to fit more inventory at our ops centers. -
Munchery has always been a design focused company but when you first start out you need to get a MVP [Minimum Viable Product] out in the world and start iterating.
Once Munchery started gaining traction our team went through what we called the Munchery 2.0 redesign. At that point we sat down and thought through were we wanted Munchery positioned as a brand, redesigned the website, IOS apps, and we redid all photography. -
While we were in the redesign phase we went through a ton of iterations. Ultimately we tried to listen to our users and listen to what they value.
One area that we did this in was with our packaging. Our users wanted environmentally friendly packaging. We spent roughly 3-4 months exploring options for trays, lids, sleeves, and bags. We even rejected some options due to the sleeves using too much ink. Ultimately we ended up with all compostable packaging with post-consumer recycled bags. -
In our final logo we decided to go with a modified Antenna typeface but for our apps and website we mostly use Gotham.
I personally am a huge fan of Gotham since it is a clean and super readable font. Hoefler & Co. did a great job creating the Cloud Type solution and it renders really well in all browsers and apps. -
For Co.Design readers, here's a little background on typeface design legend Jonathan Hoefler.
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When we were redesigning our site we were trying to get a Beta into Hoefler & Co. but they were not sure when it would be available. About two weeks before our launch we got notified that we could start using Gotham. We had to scramble and spend about a week swapping out fonts in our IOS app and site. I am not sure everyone realized that a change like that would touch every single page and spend time making sure nothing broke and that everything looked great.
That change cost us probably around 80-90 hours combined work hours between all teams. -
Yea, I actually work with our inhouse photographers a lot. Our team is led by Annie Martin and we work closely to set branding standards and also work together for all our marketing and social media assets.
It is super rare as a designer to think of an awesome design and then walk over two desks and work to get the perfect assets. :) -
Readers: for more about food photography, check out Co.Design's Food Week coverage on the topic.
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Thanks so much for joining us everyone, and thanks Ozzy for taking the time to answer our questions. We’re chatting with even more of our Innovation By Design awards finalists running up to our Innovation By Design conference on Wednesday, October 15. Check them all out at live.fastcompany.com.
