From the Sertão, at the Quebrada, and to the world.
Mocotó
In 1973, the first Casa do Norte Irmãos Almeida was born, an enterprise created by the family that had migrated from Mulungu, in the sertão of the state of Pernambuco, and started to supply the periphery of São Paulo with broad beans, slices of dried beef, flours, rapaduras, and baskets. There, Mr. Zé Almeida served a mocotó broth that quickly gained notoriety among both migrants and people from São Paulo.
Decades later, at the hands of Mr. José’s son, chef Rodrigo Oliveira, Mocotó would transform the new Brazilian gastronomy by celebrating the original ingredients and traditions of the cuisine of the Northeastern sertão with the best techniques and technologies of world cuisine. By welcoming people of different origins, classes, and occupations in the Quebrada of São Paulo, Mocotó gathers, reveals, and serves the flavor of Brazil at the table.
It was in Vila Medeiros that we started the process of consolidating the Mocotó brand strategy. The root, purpose, way, values, attributes, and inspirations of the brand were revealed and savored among cassava chips, tapioca dices, torresminhos, and many Quebrada-lemonades.
If the Mangue Beat movement used the synthesis of a “parabolic antenna stuck in the mud” to revolutionize the cultural stagnation experienced in Recife in the early 1990s, Mocotó appropriates the phrase by artist Luciano Suassuna, “Where the land is drier, the roots are deeper”, to reestablish, in the Quebrada of Vila Medeiros, a true cultural mix of the country, by preparing and serving to everyone the wisdom, ingredients, kindness, colors, humor, flavors and original values of Brazil.
Our challenge, then, was not to create, but to translate this culture into its own language: to assimilate the colors of the ingredients and the environment, give body to the shapes, manipulate the typography, and combine all of the language elements to materialize this unique way of thinking and acting in the world – transforming the Mocotó brand value proposition in its language.
The understanding of our values as a management tool was decisive for Mocotó to face the reality that the pandemic imposed on our sector. Today, we are a better restaurant, run by better people.
The work was organized in visual systems and practical guidelines that reveal the meaning of the use of colors, typographic families, art direction, and new expressions of the Mocotó logo. This visual identity, combined with the editorial topics and the tone of voice of the brand – its repertoire of subjects and its verbal identity –, inspire and guide the practice of its own language, the Mocotó language.
At first, I thought the work would be just a visual orientation for communication, but it was much more than that. The clear direction to create and decide facilitates our day-to-day work and reveals our essence.
“Saleiro”, o nosso jornal digital, não é apenas um panfleto do Grupo Sal – é isso também! –, aqui, você vai encontrar referências, listas e dicas cuidadosamente roubadas de quem realmente entende do riscado.
Compartilhamos tudo de forma organizada, leve e sucinta. No mínimo, guarda para ver depois. Vale o risco.
Assine o Saleiro: nosso jornal digital
Pitadas mensais de criatividade e bom humor para incluir na caixola. Não perca!