Na Cheez

NaCheez is a food venture by Dehradun native–Sameer Sewak, who began cooking Awadhi cuisine on his terrace as a hobby but quickly gained momentum.

In his own words– “it began as a pandemic activity to keep busy during lockdown. I started cooking regularly on a makeshift firewood stove on my terrace and would share videos and pictures of the same on social media. There was enough interest in my food that I thought of taking orders on weekends. The response was overwhelming. So much so, that my family had to step in to manage the volume of orders. I would take orders and buy supplies during the week and on weekends wake early morning to cook. And later, drive around making the deliveries. My father would help me light up the chulha, my mother helped with the cooking and my sister helped with packaging and making spreadsheets. More and more people in and visiting Dehradun and Mussoorie started placing their orders, including celebrities visiting the city. Since the orders have become too many to handle from my home kitchen, I am now working on taking a bigger space to expand the menu and hire more people to run it as a cloud kitchen. This was also felt like a good time to brand the venture.”

Wordmark and Visual Language

After the first meeting with Sameer, where he talked extensively about his love for food and cooking, I got a good sense of what he visualised for his venture’s future. The spices he uses have so much depth of flavour, while at the same time his cooking seems effortless. I wanted the wordmark to emulate that. A few quick sketches and I had what I wanted; the food is cooked in a traditional way and hence the name and the logo evoke old world charm.

The motif was inspired from Mughal architecture, with its presense of jaalis and arches; this was a form that was simple as well as ornate at the same time. We decided to keep the scribbled, sketchy version of the logo as well to be in tune with the rusticness of the whole operation.

Design Collaterals

Namrata Goyal © 2023